Author Time:
Alright it is time for yet another chapter of Desire is Half of Life. I'm really happy that the number of reviews went back up. I know I might expect too much but getting eight one chapter and one the next chapter is a little harsh on the readers part. If I'm going in a direction you don't like tell me about it. Gezz, anyway, I just realized that have been writing this fan fiction for over a year now. I had a long pause there for a while but then I got back on it an I give out chapters pretty quickly IMO and I want to thank the people that have been reading. Right now I really want to thank Saiou-chan for the most awesome review I have gotten to date. Why? It was an actual critique review. I've never received a review that told me about grammar errors or punctuation mistakes so I'm in love. (HAVE MY BABIES!) Ahem, now, on to the story.
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Chapter Ten: Refractions
"The beginning is the most important part of how the end will turn out."
(Naruto PoV)
Time flies when it's all you have. Days turn into years without so much as a moment's notice and in the end you're faced with the dawn of a new age. It's been three years since I arrived in this place. Three years since I died and I'm finding myself reflecting on that time already. Some would think that it takes a lot more time then that but that would mean that they've never had several things happen back to back. Granted that the things that all happened at once made life here more interesting, but I just can't help but to look back on the quiet times before what started what would probably lead into some major event.
The biggest shock I was met with when I arrived here, my dad. I never expected him to be here, nonetheless for him to be the same man that had sealed the Kyuubi within me. I told myself a long time ago that I didn't hate the man that had sealed the fox in me. I kind of wanted to thank him. If I hadn't had that monster I would have never made the friends I did, maybe not even have lived as long as I did. I still haven't thanked him but my dad is the only reason that I've got the friends I do. Even now in death it's all thanks to him.
The years went on and by the time I was in Division Six I had already befriended the Fukutaicho, Kurosaki Ichigo, and somewhat the Taicho, Kuchiki Byakuya. I think I had the best experience being a new Squad member then anyone else in history. I wasn't treated like some kind of outcast newbie but like I had already been a part of the Squad for years. This helped me out more then either of my commanding officers would ever know and even now I'm having the time of my after-life.
Meeting other people was an interesting point for me. For a long time I had thought of the separate divisions the same way that the villages back home were like, so when I met Hitsugaya Toushiro for the first time I was cautious. Ichigo thought I was being stupid and when I asked him about how the divisions acted afterward he said that we were divided sure enough but we were also united. I didn't understand what Ichigo had meant by that but after some time I came to my own understanding. We could be called by our different divisions but in the end we are all the same. The next time after that when I meet Toushiro I considered him as a friend and we wound up kind of close ever since.
After that everything was kind of okay, like it had been rehearsed everyday was the same. I was content with that but then, Sasuke showed up. For a bit I just would have guessed that it would have added another repeating phase to my day but it was the signal of change. The night after I saw Sasuke I slept with Hitsugaya and that next morning Sai appeared. I felt that I was at the breaking point because it was all happening too fast. Sai, Sasuke, Toushiro, I didn't think I could handle it and then; the Arrancar attack. Orochimaru I would have pegged as a Hollow from the start if I knew what they were when I was alive but Sakura? Why is Sakura a Hollow? I still don't understand that one at all, also if she's a Hollow, who else could be? I don't want to fight my friends like that if they are Hollow.
I guess Sasuke would call me weak because of that. That's why he had to save me from her too. I can't fight my friends and I wonder if I'll have to do it again anytime soon.
Coming away from past events the current ones are more interesting. My dad heard about what happened to Itachi. I guess he felt bad for him or something but he decided that he wanted Itachi to be part of our family no matter what. At first Itachi turned him down but after two weeks of constant nagging the former Uchiha gave in and now is named Namikaze Itachi. Funny how that worked out huh? I would have never been able to call it but dad said he knew Itachi when he was a child and that he felt it would be his responsibility to take care of ninja who had come from Konoha. I sometimes don't understand his logic but I think I understand this bit.
Dad was once Hokage, he was once in charge of making sure that all of the people of Konoha were safe, so holding true to his past title dad is taking take of former Konoha residents and giving them a place to call home. Come to think of home, I don't know how dad got this house. It's huge and able to harbor at least a hundred people, but I don't know how he got it. Toushiro lives in an apartment, so does Sasuke, and Ichigo lives on the Kuchiki land with Kuchiki-Taicho, so how did dad get enough land for it to be called the Namikaze Estate? I'll get around to asking him sometime or another, like I said before, it's pretty much all I have a head of me.
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(Third PoV)
"Good morning Naruto-kun." Sai's voice broke through the slight morning stupor that Naruto had been in. Sai smiled to the blonde in earnest. Naruto was the only one that Sai would show a real smile to because Naruto was the only to ever make Sai actually feel emotion; maybe Sakura but that emotion was somewhere along the line of fear, fear for his life. Sai had leaned early on that there were two things you never did in front of Sakura: bad mouth Uchiha Sasuke, or tell her she was ugly.
"G'mornin'." Naruto yawned while he stretched his arms high over his head. "Did you just get off?" Naruto questioned letting his hands fall to the wood flooring.
"Yes." Sai answered before taking a seat next to Naruto. "You're about to head out right?"
"In a little bit." Naruto commented with a hum. "We don't get much time huh? I guess that might be my fault. Toushiro might be trying to protect me from talking to you."
"I figured that might have been the reason." Sai assumed as he lightly shook his head looking to the ground. He looked back up at Naruto to find a confused face on the blonde. "I was a ninja once you know, and analyzing situations quickly was part of the job requirement; though I guess that wasn't your strong point."
"Hey!" Naruto defended before scrunching his nose and looking away angrily. "I had my own ninja way! You know that better then everyone on top of that!"
"True." Sai laughed slightly leaning lightly away from Naruto to get a clearer look of him. "There are a lot of things I'm sure I know better then others, but that's not exactly appropriate conversation."
"Of course you would say that." Naruto shook his head before sighing then looking at the dark eyed teen. "You were the first person to comment about my penis so you'd be the first one to talk about other things too."
"Is that really what you think?" Sai said faking an offended voice before facing away from Naruto as if he had been hurt. "I'm sad to hear that."
"You can't bull-shit with me Sai. I know better." Naruto muttered making a face that said 'give me a brake.'
"I sorry, I don't think I can keep talking to you. You think of me as a dirty old man in the end." Sai said with a tone of pain as he stood up. "Farewell, Naruto-kun."
Naruto stared as Sai began to walk away. His expression was unchanging until Sai glanced back with hurt eyes. Feeling a slight guilt Naruto called for the Uzuki to stop. "I'm sorry." Naruto said before Sai turned on heel with a grin it was quiet for a moment before Naruto spoke again. "What do you mean dirty old man?"
Sai's face slowly fell to a slightly confused expression before a yawn surfaced from the older Shinigami. Naruto was caught of guard when Sai's mouth began to widen and had braced himself for something more then a yawn. The blonde laughed nervously when Sai gave him a confused look. "I've only seen that three times now." Naruto chuckled scratching his nose lightly. "Yawn." He explained when Sai's face showed more confusion.
With a sound of understanding Sai shrugged before a smile returned to his face. "Well, as much as I don't want to, I need to go to sleep. I'll see you when you get home."
"Right, rest well." Naruto waved before Sai turned to walk off to his room where he would find a comfortable bed to sleep on.
"I wonder how today will turn out." Naruto said looking to the top of a pine tree with a smile. He hoped that things would stay has they had for the last month. Nothing had been too exciting, but not to the point of boring. Things had been picking up because someone supposedly got a lead on the Hollow movements. "Well, time to go." Naruto stood before proceeding along the wood walk way to the front steps where he found Ichigo waiting for him. "You're like a faithful dog the way you wait for me every morning."
"Say what you want, if there was a day I wasn't here you'd freak out and look for me." Ichigo murmured cleaning out his ear.
"Wanna test that?" Naruto said amused taking his place to the right of the Kurosaki.
"No," Ichigo's tone caused the blonde to make a difficult face. "I do it so that if I don't show up one day you'll know something's wrong. Unless I told you I wouldn't be there naturally; although, I think that you'd probably forget until you've got half of Sixth Division looking for me." Ichigo laughed trying to lighten the heavy mood he had brought about with his words.
"Why would you not show up without warning?" Naruto asked with slightly darkened eyes.
"I've…seen a lot of demented stuff since I've be able to become a Shinigami. You're the person here that I trust the most." Ichigo smiled to Naruto. After looking at Naruto's thoroughly confused expression he laughed before he continued. "Did you know that most all souls that come to Soul Society lose the memories of when they were alive?" Naruto nodded his head. "Well, obviously there are exceptions. You, me, Namikaze-Taicho, Uchiha, and so on with people from your world. I just feel like, you, me and those people are more human then anyone else."
"We're not human though." Naruto stated with a clear voice. "We're Shinigami, Death Gods, and Soul Reapers; to humans we're the Grim Reaper. We're dead. Humans are living."
"Exactly." Ichigo hummed as the two walked along the path the cool breeze of the morning blowing through the maze like halls leading to the main quarters of the Sixth Division. "We remember being human though."
"Ah." Naruto understood now. Ichigo attached to Naruto because the Namikaze remembered being human much like Ichigo did. Being from different worlds did not make a difference and that is how the two of them connected despite the differences in their lives. It was in their deaths that they connected and how they would stay connected.
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Sasuke had been sitting at Squad Three headquarters for a good hour now. Through the years he had grown accustom to being the first in authority there, then slowly on more people would show up the last being Minato. When Sasuke first realized his captain was always kind of late he compared the blonde Taicho to Kakashi and later on as Minato began to make simple mistakes or point out obvious things the Uchiha changed his label to Naruto. Sasuke had no idea how accurate it would be to think of his captain as Naruto until he once again met his rival, best friend, and first love once again.
"Maybe it would be better to call Naruto, Namikaze-Taicho." Sasuke muttered before he shook his head and looked to the door as the Vice-Captain Kira Izuru walked in. "Good morning Kira Fukutaicho!" Sasuke said with a quick bow before the vice-captain told Sasuke he could be at ease.
"Is…" Izuru started raising his hand to point at the door he had just come through but stopped half way. "Never mind, I know the answer to that question already. Let me know when Namikaze-Taicho comes in, alright?"
"Yes sir!" Sasuke's voice rose before Izuru nodded his head and went to attend to other duties. Sasuke loosed up his stance after Izuru was out of sight. The Uchiha was perfectly fine acting normal around Minato but with other superior people, save for maybe Ichigo and Toushiro, he would get tense.
For Sasuke his new life that started in Soul Society was at first a miracle and now a gift that descended from the highest plane of heaven. He had his family, he had Naruto close to hime again, he was in a slight position of power, and he had the power to protect Naruto.
'A sixth seat doing better then a third in a fight isn't exactly good for Naruto though.' Sasuke thought to himself as he sat on the couch in the main lobby. 'No one's called him on it though.'
"Good morning Sasuke-kun." Minato's voice rang from the front doors. "I trust you're ready for another routine day?"
"Of course, Kira-Fukutaicho already told me he wanted to talk to you. I bet it's about your filing again." Sasuke mused with a smirk playing at his lips.
"It can't be that bad already." Minato defended before he opened the door to his office which was covered in papers. Some of the sheets were written on, a few had doodles, and many others were unsigned important documents. A long pause followed before Minato slowly closed the door. "I see. Well…Ahem…"
"I'm not doing it for you even if you court-martial me for insubordination." Sasuke said quickly folding his arms. He dealt with Minato in a similar why that he would deal with the captain's son. "You won't learn anything if you don't do it yourself."
"You're so mean Sasuke-kun, and I was thinking about teaching you something interesting that I found." Minato whined as he hung his head. "I'm sure that you would love it too."
"I don't care." Sasuke said flat out causing the blonde captain to groan in frustration.
--
"Your tea Kuchiki-Taicho." Megumi smiled placing a tray on the desk where Kuchiki Byakuya had just finished signing papers.
"Thank you." Byakuya nodded toward Megumi before she left with a slender bow then took her leave quietly shutting the door behind her. 'Three years…I'm already feeling tired.' Byakuya said to himself as he sipped his tea. 'Kurosaki…Ichigo…'
Byakuya's thoughts had been littered from time to time with Ichigo. He believed strongly that he had made the right decision when it came to the care of Ichigo. Byakuya had never found the orange haired teen to be much of a threat since his death coming to Seireitei. If anything, the ebony haired captain had grown found of Ichigo though he would never admit it.
A knock came from the door before Naruto's voice came from the other side of the entrance. "Taicho, some papers came in that you need to sign."
"Enter."
"You know typical Ichigo, he makes me do the work." Naruto laughed as he rolled his eyes. "Lazy jerk's sleeping in the lounge."
"That is indeed like him." Byakuya suppressed laughter. He was glad that Ichigo was acting like himself. No matter how annoying the typical actions of Ichigo were to Byakuya he was happy that the Kurosaki was acting normal. "These are about what now?"
"Tired of reading already? It's only eleven." Naruto chuckled before he turned the pages and skimmed them. "Well this one is about member transfers. Looks like Takatai and Yurukume want to transfer out to Squads Eleven and four respectively."
"Hand it here." Byakuya motioned for the paper and he inked a quill and signed an approval. "Next."
"Some one wants to start…casual weekends?" Naruto raised an eye brow to this.
"Toss it."
"Alright, next is, well, more like a question, it wants to know what to do with an Abarai Renji…who's that?" Naruto questioned looking at his captain with lost eyes.
"Former Fukutaicho to Squad Six. He was sent on a special Earth mission three and a half years ago with Kuchiki Rukia." Byakuya explained taking the paper before he started to write on it. "He's capable of Bankai…hmm…I think that a captain's position on the Ninth Squad would suffice."
"Will he be happy?" Naruto wondered out loud.
"Possibly, not that I care if he's happy or not."
"Rukia…is she related?"
"The same why that you and Itachi are related, why do you want to know?" Byakuya questioned glancing up from the paper.
"Well, you said Kuchiki so I assumed, it was just a question." Naruto defended with a shrug.
"It's none of your concern."
"Same old Taicho, okay! Last one…it's sealed. I don't think I should read this." Naruto said as he showed his captain the envelope. Byakuya took the packet with a weak nod. "Well, I'm going to go and wake Ichigo up. I think some training is in order."
"You know you're going to cause a verbal fight." Byakuya muttered as he started to write about Renji.
"I apologize in advance." Naruto laughed before he left quietly closing the door behind him.
For a moment Byakuya looked up at the now closed door with a gentle smile on his lips. After the moment past he put on his same stern expression and continued to write.
--
"Matsumoto! Get up!" Hitsugaya shouted at the large busted woman sleeping on the couch in his office. "If you want to sit around at least fill out paper work while you're at it!"
"But paperwork just makes me sleepier!" she yawned acting much like what her Zanpakutou would act; like a cat.
"Stop being ridiculous and help me out for once!"
"I do help out. I keep the couch warm for you." Rangiku yawned before turning her back to her captain and going back to sleep.
"Fine." Hitsugaya muttered striding over to his desk. Toushiro had always taken care of the paper work. He was not expecting Rangiku to get up but he always tried. It was something that always happened. Change was something that not many people could handle in Seireitei. If something began to alter, depending on the change, a small or huge panic would start before things would adjust to the situation and then days would go on without much difference from the day before it.
'Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.' Hitsugaya thought looking to the ceiling before he turned his seat to look out of the window. 'Reflexes can be changed though.' Toushiro thought before turning back to his paper filled desk. He slowly picked up a kanji filled paper and began to read over it slowly. His sea green eyes glanced to the paper under his arm spotting the name Uzuki on the top. "This is from him." Toushiro said picking up the paper and looking at Sai's name.
"He wants to quit night shifts." Hitsugaya rolled his eyes as he looked at request paper. A particular section of the paper caught his interest though.
In the additional comments section:
"I understand why I was placed on night duty, but I have recently spoken to Naruto and all ill emotions or confusion have been cleared up. This is, of course, a request and you can deny this. I would just like to go back to a schedule of working that I am accustomed to."
"You talked to Naruto have you?" Toushiro asked no one. For a moment he wanted to just discard it but after some thought he realized that the whole reason he did put Sai on night shifts was so that Naruto would not have to see Sai. 'I really am selfish.' Toushiro said limply holding the paper as he placed his left hand over his eye.
"I'll give it to you." The captain said signing the paper giving consent to another schedule change.
"Taicho are you talking to yourself?" Matsumoto asked as she sat up with a yawn.
"No, but if you're up why don't you help with the papers?" Hitsugaya asked annoyed.
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(Naruto PoV)
"The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity." Ichigo said as we sat back to back in the training dojo trying to recover our breath. We had been sword fighting for over two hours now and we were exhausted.
"Huh?" I breathed as I looked at the back of his head.
"I read that in one of the books at Byakuya's house. I thought it sounded cool so I memorized it." Ichigo said with a thoughtful voice. "Wanna hear what I think it means?" I gave him the go ahead so he cleared his throat before he spoke again. "We can be afraid of dying but even though we fear it, it will be remembered as the day that we lived the most. Even if we really didn't do anything the day we pass will be remembered just as much as our birthdays and celebrated the same way."
"Ah," I sounded as I thought about the quote as my friend spoke. "Have you had a death day before Ichigo?" He made a confused sound so I explained. "Well, I thought about it before so I'll tell you. Don't laugh at it though." He agreed to my condition of sharing and then I continued. "If we have days that we were born celebrated, birthdays, shouldn't we also have the day we died celebrated?"
"I don't know about that." Ichigo muttered before he stood up. "Remember, when most people come here they forget about when they were living. It's hard to celebrate either a birthday or a death day if you don't remember being alive to die in the first place."
"Good point." I said standing up as well with a thoughtful face. "I guess you're right."
"Now, enough about death and living and that crap! Let's go out on a patrol. If I stay in this place much longer I'm gonna kill-over." Ichigo growled in an agitated tone.
"But didn't Zaraki-Taicho say he was going to be looking for you today?" I reminded him of what the Eleventh Division captain had said two days ago.
"So that's why I didn't feel like going out even earlier…." Ichigo hummed scratching his chin. "Fine, let's just keep sparing. Eventually it'll be the time we can head home."
"Okay." I smiled with a vigorous nod. "Besides, training will be good for us. We never know when Arrancar might show back up!"
"Oh yeah, those guys…" Ichigo hummed before nodding back to me. "You're right! We have to be ready! The fight against the Hollow's will never end if we aren't in shape! Ready, Naruto?"
"Bring it!" I shouted before dashing at him meeting his raised Shinai with my own.
Time passed as if it was a forever motion. Eventually it was time to go home and we started our way along the path again. I said that we needed to be ready for the Hollow but I think I was just saying that so we had a reason to keep going. The whole thing about this life in Seireitei was that there was nothing to really do unless we set a goal. We needed to set goals, or make plans, so that we felt like this life was worth going through every time the sun rose anew.
Desire is half of life.
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(The End)
For now, I plan on doing a sequel which will actually have more yaoi and more other stuff as well. I'm going to actually plan it out too. I liked working on this and I don't think I would have wanted to do it any different. At any rate, the next title will be Indifference is Half of Death. I want to hear reviews still so send them in. Maybe some of the things you guys say will help me out on Indifference is Half of Death. Also, take a quick look at the poll I have on my page right now, I want to know who you guys think that Naruto should be with. I know in my reviews a lot of people have said with Hitsugaya but there are masses of you who don't review. Therefore the poll will help me out. I won't let anyone know who's in the lead and by the time the next fic is up I'll probably close the poll.
SO GO TO MY PAGE AND TAKE PART IN THE POLL!!
Yoi ichinichi o.
Kaiku Akari