"I'm coming with you."
"You can't."
"If the Yondaime wanted you to do this, then I want to help."
"Kakashi," Sasuke stopped packing to look at him. "You'll just slow me down."
"You know," Kakashi picked up a coin and began spinning it nonchalantly in his hand. "Even if you say no, I'm going to follow you."
Sasuke sighed. "Alright."
"Good. Let's go."
"What?!" Sasuke looked up in surprise, "I'm not even packed yet."
Kakashi lifted his bag, a cool smile playing on his lips. "You're slowing me down."
The past three days hadn't been that exciting for Naruto. Sure, the town looked cool but without people, there wasn't much to do. A few times, he had tried to play pranks on Itachi but Itachi was too perceptive to fall for any of them.
Naruto looked through the small library of books. A lot of them were history on the villages. "History. Boring." Naruto stacked another book on the floor beside him. "History…history…history…hi-Naruto? What the-" Naruto flipped open the red book that bore his name.
He gasped when he saw the sketch on the first page. It was a drawing of a small boy. He couldn't have been a year old. He had yellow hair and clear blue eyes. Naruto reached his hand up to touch his own hair.
He flipped to the second page, eager to see more. "No way." Naruto's first bite was scrawled across the top of the page. Stuck to the page was a photo of a small boy with a ramen noodle sticking out of his mouth.
Naruto dropped the book and backed away from it. The picture was not in color but it was definitely the same boy that was on the first page. Naruto stared at the book for a few minutes. His heart pounded in his ears. "It….can't…be."
Naruto gently picked the book back up and flipped through the pages. The boy was shown laughing, playing, clapping, eating, and, finally, sleeping. Naruto gazed at the last picture with confusion. He looked at the boy, asleep, his tiny fingers curled around the arm of a black teddy bear. Suddenly, something occurred to Naruto. "Moo."
He backed up into the wall and slid to the ground. "Moo moo wuvs you." Naruto stared at his hands. Then, as if in a trance, he stood up and walked to the bedroom. He looked into the cradle and pulled out the bear. "Moo moo?" Naruto looked at the bear as if it might suddenly come alive and explain this to him.
Naruto sat on the floor and embraced his bear. After a moment, his brow furrowed. Who had that been? Someone had drawn that sketch and taken those photos. Someone had played with him and Moo. The more Naruto tried to remember, the more it hurt. He clutched the black bear and cried, letting his pain become the salt water agony that leaked from his eyes.
"This is where we traced them last." Kakashi knelt down to observe the slight imprint that two pairs of feet had left on the ground.
Sasuke watched him, mute. For the last hour, a terrible mixture of emotions had rushed through him. At first it was curiosity, then confusion, then sadness. He tried to get his emotions under control but it was becoming harder as each new feeling came.
He looked down at his hands. They had been slightly silver since his encounter with the fourth. Then he noticed that his right hand was sort of…shining.
He heard a voice to his left. "Need some help?" He turned to see the fourth leaning against a tree.
"Yon-"
His face was a bitter mix of relief and pain. "I'll take you to Naruto. Just follow my lead."
Sasuke looked back down at his shining hands. Then at Yondaime. But, as is expected, Yondaime was gone.
"This way."
Kakashi looked in the direction that Sasuke indicated. "How can you be sure?"
"Trust me."