["et lux in tenebris lucet"- and light shines in the darkness]
Naruto let out a deep sigh, feeling weariness slide into place like an old friend. Damn, was he exhausted. It seemed like there was always one more thing to do, one more person to talk to. And even through all of that, he still hadn't managed to pin down that Uchiha bastard!
And for once, he wasn't actually talking about Sasuke— though he was gonna have to have a serious talk with him too. No, he was talking about Uchiha Obito. The man behind the madness, the one to blame for almost all of the shitty things that had ever happened in Naruto's life. And also, coincidentally, his soulmate.
And that fucking sucked. Naruto really didn't know what to think about it. He'd never been the hesitating type, but now he found himself at a loss. Could anyone blame him? This wasn't how he'd thought it would be.
He'd never thought that his soulmate would be someone like Obito— someone who had given up. Because despite all of his protests to the contrary, that was clearly what had happened. Obito had lost the person most important to him, and with Madara's hand there to guide him, he fell into a pit of despair that he had never escaped from.
Honestly... Naruto didn't want to deal with that. Was that selfish? Was it bad for him to just want real happiness, for once, that didn't come with any strings attached?
Naruto shook his head, violently wrenching himself out of such depressing thoughts. "Okay! I'll go talk to him, and we'll finally get this all sorted out!"
"Um, who?" Sakura said, a bit of amusement on her face as she ducked out of the way of Naruto's exuberant flailing.
"Ah, Sakura-chan!" he yelped. "Sorry! I didn't notice you were there!"
Sakura huffed lightly, but she didn't try anything else. And that was... weird. Usually she took the opportunity to complain, if nothing else. But when Naruto took a second to get a better look at her, he noticed the dark bags under her eyes, and the worry lines on her face.
"Are... you okay?" he asked hesitantly, wondering if he should be helping her in some way.
She smiled, but she couldn't hide the sadness in her eyes. "Yeah. I'm alright. It's just, Ino... She's still pretty torn up about her dad. And I want to help, but I just don't know how. Y'know?"
Naruto bit his lip, feeling a bit guilty. He'd completely forgotten that Inoichi had been killed in the destruction of Headquarters. A lot of top shinobi had died in that explosion— no wonder she was tired and sad.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Naruto said anxiously, fidgeting in place to work off some of the nervous energy that had begun to build.
"I don't know," Sakura said— and that was what Naruto liked about her. Even if it wasn't pretty, even if it wasn't necessarily what he wanted to hear, Sakura never lied to him. "It's impossible to tell right now. The fact that we're still on the battlefield certainly isn't helping, but I don't know how much good it will do to return to Konohagakure. There's gonna be reminders everywhere, no matter where she goes."
"Yeah, that's true," Naruto nodded regretfully. It wasn't gonna be the same for him either. To walk those streets again, knowing that the ghosts of Neji and the others might be walking alongside him... "But she has you, doesn't she? So I think that she'll be okay."
"You certainly have a lot of confidence in me," Sakura laughed, and the expression on her face eased somewhat.
"Well, you love her!" Naruto said easily. It had taken some time to get over his crush on her, but Sakura's enduring insistence on acting as aggressively straight as possible had helped put an end to that. He knew fear when he saw it, and he never wanted to contribute to that.
"She is my soulmate," Sakura said primly, but her smile had softened. She knew what he meant.
See, having a soulmate didn't mean that you were gonna fall in love with them or anything, even if that was often the case. It just meant that they could be good for you, if given the chance.
At that thought, Naruto wilted. He hadn't really been giving Obito a chance, had he?
"Go talk to him," Sakura advised, once more proving that she could read him like a book. "Last time I saw, he was with Kakashi-sensei, at the south fringes of the Konoha encampment."
"Okay," Naruto nodded, more to himself that anything. "Okay."
He could do this. He wanted to do this. And then—
"Hey, Sakura-chan? You wouldn't happen to know where—"
"Sasuke-kun is off with Orochimaru and his little gang," Sakura said, her eyes twinkling with some kind of hidden knowledge. "He's been rather restless, lately. So don't keep him waiting too long, okay?"
When Naruto smiled this time, it was entirely genuine. "Thanks, Sakura-chan."
He wasn't gonna let anything stop him this time— not even himself.
(|||)
"You're doing well," Gaara said, quietly encouraging.
Tadashi felt the urge to snap at him, but managed to rein himself in at the last moment. None of this was Gaara's fault— it would be stupid to get angry with him.
Instead, he concentrated on his movements, shakily making his way across the small tent that he and Gaara occupied. Tadashi had been able to leave the medical tent a few days ago. He really shouldn't have, considering the condition that he was in, but there was more patients that needed attention, and his condition wasn't life threatening. Just infuriating.
Gaara hovered almost anxiously by his side, primed and ready to catch Tadashi if he began to waver. Tadashi would protest this, if it hadn't been needed three times already.
"I can do this," he muttered to himself, eyes narrowed in concentration. Taking one faltering step after the other, he slowly made his way to the other side.
When he'd gotten there, he'd broken into a sweat, feeling like he'd just run a marathon. Fucking hell, why was he always so weak?
It felt like life was moving too fast for him, he just couldn't keep up. And how many times had this happened to him? How many times had he been left behind, struggling to get on the same level as his peers?
"That was much faster than last time," Gaara said approvingly, gifting Tadashi with a small smile. "You're already improving."
"Doesn't feel like it," Tadashi said miserably, slumping onto the ground with a pained grimace.
Gaara sat down next to him, and then adjusted his position so that he had Tadashi's head laying in his lap. When he began stroking Tadashi's hair, the Nara went completely boneless, feeling a sense of relaxation come over him that had eluded him for days.
"It may seem hard now, but you will only get better with time," Gaara murmured, and his words held a strict confidence in them.
It made Tadashi feel guilty— because he could only imagine that he was letting Gaara down. He cared about Gaara— so much that it fucking ached, and he had no idea how to show it. Kiba and Kankurō had no such issues, Temari and Shikamaru had been dating since for years. Even Hinata was pursuing her soulmate with the kind of determination that Tadashi could only dream of.
Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. And he was left like this.
"I'm not gonna get better at all," he said, barely biting back the poison that wanted to spill from his lips. "No matter how much I work at it, I'm not gonna get back any kind of full mobility. In a best-case scenario, I'll have to walk with a cane for the rest of my life. And no matter how much I improve, my career is over. I'll never be able to work as a sabotage officer like this."
And didn't that fucking burn. The one thing that he'd worked on his whole life, the only thing he'd ever been good at, and now it was taken from him.
"That is true," Gaara said honestly, and the blunt admission almost made Tadashi want to laugh. "But just because you can no longer work in sabotage hardly means that you have to give up as a shinobi. There are plenty of other options for you."
To Tadashi's great relief, Gaara didn't try and suggest that he retire, like a number of other people had been hinting. But the knowledge that he had lost his one talent still grated at him.
"I'm good at sabotage," he whispered, something defeated in his tone as he curled further into his soulmate's embrace. "I don't know anything else that I can do."
Gaara studied him for a long moment before answering. "Well, is there anything that you like to do?"
Tadashi blinked in surprise, thrown a little off-guard. No one had ever really asked that before. All he had was his duty to the village— it only made sense to take advantage of his talents in order to do that. His preferences had never been a priority.
At a loss, he shrugged. "I... don't know. I suppose I've never really thought about it."
Gaara frowned, but made no comment on the confusion in his tone, doggedly pressing ahead instead. "Nothing? Isn't there anything that you truly enjoy doing when you're off duty?"
Well, he liked baking. But that wouldn't be a very useful skill for a shinobi, would it? The only other thing that he could really think of, was—
"I like to spend time with people," Tadashi said, the words quiet like a confession. "I like to spend time with you. But what am I supposed to do with that?"
Gaara brightened, a triumphant edge to his expression. "Teaching."
Tadashi stared, wide-eyed. "What?"
"You'd be a great teacher," Gaara said, uncharacteristically plowing his way through any of Tadashi's attempts to speak. "They have specialized instruction in Konoha, right? You could be a sabotage teacher. That way, you can still take advantage of the skills that you've learned in a way that would help your village."
Damn, Gaara really knew him too well. He'd hit all of his weak points.
"But, what if—"
"Let's not worry about it right now," Gaara brutally cut him off, killing his complaint before it could really begin to form. "We'll be heading back to our villages in a couple of days. When that happens, take the time you need to recover, and we can talk about this again."
Tadashi nodded mutely, still startled by his sudden passion. But a second later, his thoughts caught up with the rest of what Gaara had said. Returning to the village...
That was going to be interesting, to say the least. He and Shikamaru lived in the same compound after all— someone was going to break, for better or for worse. Shikamaru had tried to speak with him when he was still in the medical tent, but it had been terribly awkward. There was such a conspicuous absence between them, Shikaku's ghost standing in the divide.
But still, Shikamaru had tried. And because it was Shikamaru, Tadashi had no doubt that they would find a way to work through this. His cousin— the brat who might as well have been his brother, was hurting and hopeless and still trying. It was only right that Tadashi do the same.
"When we go back," Tadashi began, voice as steady as he could manage it, "you'll send me letters again, right?"
Gaara let out a small sound, something that could almost be described as a laugh. "Of course, Tadashi. Always."
