Title: Koumajutsu
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own "Naruto" or "Inuyasha". This will be Canon Naruto and Alternate Universe Inuyasha.
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Chapter 50: Nosy Sakura
Sakura tossed and turned for hours that night. Sleep was a fleeting thought that she couldn't quite get her fingers around. Her brain was a whirlwind of thoughts, and most of them were about Naruto. He really did amaze her. He'd gone off to find Sasuke and in the process he saved the lives of seventeen children and an elderly woman. He'd saved them from having to live as he did, without family.
Even if Naruto hadn't brought Sasuke back, Sakura was still happy. She tried again to grasp a hold on sleep, but it slipped away again, forcing her to shift herself on the bed, punch the pillow a few times, and reposition her head again.
How and when did Naruto grow to be such a great person? It was hard to look at him and see anything except a trouble-making scamp who lived in a rundown apartment building in one of the worst districts in town. Secretly, she was glad he couldn't keep living in his old apartment especially after seeing him whipped like an animal in prison. That area of town was no place for a good boy like Naruto, though he was still a trouble-making scamp.
She turned on her side and kicked the blankets off her body. There she was, in Naruto's bed, in his house… he was only a few steps down the hall. She couldn't possibly be more safe unless she were to crawl in the bed he was sharing with his little girl Vvim. Why couldn't she sleep?
She'd heard a lot of things in prison that she would rather not have heard. She'd seen a lot of things she wished she could forget. Things had been done to her that made her entire body tremor in fear of it happening again. In the showers, criminal women—ex-Jounin kunoichi, stronger than her by far, and in numbers she couldn't match—did things to her she never wanted to feel again. It would have happened on a daily basis, except a little girl made it all stop. A little girl walked over and said, "Stop hurting her," and the ex-Jounin kunoichi all backed off as if they'd been afraid.
Just thinking of it made Sakura's flesh tingle and burn. She shifted on the bed yet again in discomfort, trying to find a place on it that wasn't superheated. Was Ino having this much trouble sleeping? Ino, Hinata, and Fuyumi were at the Kazekage's house. What about Lee? Lee and Ten-Ten had gone to the Dawn Shard to check into a room. Naruto's house was big enough for them to stay, but everyone liked their privacy and the room with the beds they would have stayed in was nothing more than a very long co-ed room with bunk beds aplenty.
Sakura figured she would be staying in that room when she said she would stay. She needed to stay so that her injured friend had a medic available if he needed her. Sasuke hadn't stayed. He gave the feeble excuse that Kakashi was already going to kick his ass for not returning to the inn they were staying at by ten PM (even though he hadn't seen Kakashi since shortly after they checked into the inn days before) and then took off without bothering to mention what inn he was staying at. Gaara and Kagome had left, with Kagome arguing that Gaara needed to go home and sleep.
Sakura sat up and rubbed her face and neck, a wave of exhaustion creeping up on her but staying a bare pace behind. She thought maybe if she got a glass of water, she could sleep. She slipped out of bed and adjusted her sleeping shorts beneath the oversized tee-shirt. They were twisted up from her tossing and turning. Out of habit, she checked to make sure the dagger on her right thigh was secure. That was one thing Kakashi taught her: never be without a weapon, even in friendly territory. Even when she was at home with her aunt and uncle, she would not be caught without the dagger on her thigh during sleep.
Kakashi had a habit of climbing through locked-and-barred windows. She tried everything she knew to keep the older man out of her bedroom at night, but he was slippery. When he first started to do it after he took on their training, she immediately thought her perverted sensei was using his status as her teacher to be a peeping tom and just pretending he was training her.
It wasn't until her aunt and uncle's house was broke into by a couple of civilian wanna-be tough guys who wanted to rob them that Sakura realized the lesson (which had been explained quite clearly to her several times before—even though Kakashi wasn't usually in the habit of explaining himself multiple times) Kakashi was trying to teach.
If Sakura hadn't been home that night she really had no idea what might have happened to her aunt and uncle. They had been thoroughly shook up. They wanted to move out of the neighborhood, despite that it was peaceful in comparison to the neighborhood Naruto lived in. Instead, Sakura convinced her aunt and uncle to stay but to get a better security system installed. To that day, Sakura still wondered if Kakashi hired those thugs to get his point across, or if they truthfully were trying to rob her civilian aunt and uncle. It was awful convenient to happen when she was home…
Then again, she did get home unexpectedly late at night from a mission. Her aunt and uncle hadn't even known she'd come in because it was so late and she didn't want to wake them up, and it was only a couple hours after she settled into bed when the burglars decided to pop in for a visit (and get beat up). Her aunt and uncle hadn't even cared that the entertainment center in the living room got smashed in the process. They were too busy being happy that "their favorite girl was so tough".
Sakura tiptoed to the bedroom door and inched it open. Unlike the double doors to the living room on the first floor which slid open, the bedroom door was hinged. She could hear the hinge popping as the dry, rusty metal was forced to move.
Out of habit, she checked the hall for people before entering it, and it was habit that kept her close to the wall as she walked down the corridor. When she reached the opening for the staircase, she tiptoed as lightly as she could down the stairs. They were old, uncarpeted like most of the house Sakura had so far been privy to seeing, and she could not avoid the noisy creak some of the steps made as she stepped on them.
Naruto had apologized to her profusely as he showed her where she could sleep in privacy. He was very embarrassed at the state of the house. He said he knew it was pretty well run down, but the kids didn't listen when he gave them money to do repairs. Instead they spent the money on the painting.
Sakura really didn't know why Naruto was apologizing. The house was in better condition than the apartment building he grew up in. One of the many rather shallow reasons Sakura had as a young girl to disassociate herself from Naruto was because he couldn't afford to live in a normal house. She'd always been very good at coming up with reasons why she shouldn't talk to Naruto. Looking back on that, she found she was disgusted at how she'd been.
Now, she was happy to have him as a friend. She was lucky he would associate himself with her. She couldn't even imagine it being the other way around anymore. She used to think he was lucky to be teamed up with her. Oh how wrong she had been back then…
She made her way into the dining hall, walking the length of the very long table toward the kitchen door. She entered as quietly as she could and looked around. The only reason she knew the room was the kitchen was because it had been stated earlier. It looked very unordinary for a kitchen. The faucet was a well pump mounted onto a stone basin. She sighed.
She had forgotten for a moment that Sunagakure was a desert city. Water wasn't exactly in abundance. She should have remembered that from her trip to the bathroom earlier; she had to use a public outhouse. It stunk so bad she nearly vomited (though after seeing her green face, Naruto told her Sunday was 'waste retrieval day' so the city paid waste management crew would go to all the outhouses and replace the waste bins—not that hearing that was much reassurance), and washing her hands was equally as frightening, as the only thing provided was a bucket of cold, sudsy water that was replaced only once a day.
It wasn't hard for her to figure out why Sunagakure was a declining population. She could imagine how full the hospital must be with diseased patients. She doubted she would want to enter the place unless she had a full biohazard safety suit on.
"Can't sleep?"
Sakura jumped at the sudden question from behind her. She whirled around, hand darting to the dagger strapped to her thigh, but relaxed when she realized it was just Terrence. She shook her head. "No… I don't usually have this problem, either, so I'm really at a loss at what to do."
"Let me guess," he smiled curiously at her. "Your first thought was 'Maybe a glass of water…'?" She nodded. "That's what most people think." He moved around her and took a glass out of the cupboard, then pumped the handle on the well pump up and down until water started leaking out into the glass. When the glass was half full, he stopped pumping and yet water still trickled into the glass until it was three quarters full. "Here," he told her, setting the glass on the island counter.
"Oh… thank you…" she said automatically, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to drink it. She slid onto one of the stools and folded her hands around the glass.
"It's safe to drink," he told her with a quiet laugh, as if he'd heard her hesitant thoughts out loud. "I've been drinking from this pump for two years and I haven't gotten sick once." He slid into one of the high stools around the counter.
"Oh, I'm not worried," Sakura lied hastily, but the amusement on his features told her she hadn't lied well enough to fool him. She turned the subject away from her by asking, "Can't you sleep?"
"I'm a light sleeper. I woke up when you creaked down the stairs."
"I'm sorry," she blushed and sipped the water. It didn't taste like disease, but she knew that didn't mean it was safe to drink. It probably was a bad thing to think, but she couldn't wait to return to Konoha. She'd been in Suna for less than a day and she already was antsy to go home. Except… she wouldn't get to go home for six months…
"It doesn't really bother me," Terrence said. "With all of Nana's muttering, I'm surprised I got any sleep at all, to tell the truth."
"Is Naruto really Nana?" Sakura asked the boy. "I mean… I've known Naruto all my life and… well, I'm just having a hard time picturing it."
Terrence was silent for a moment, staring at her in the darkness. All they had for light was a nightlight on the wall, but even though that light was tiny, it still cut through the darkness enough to light up both of their faces. Finally Terrence reached out and took Sakura's glass of water, drinking it all down. He set the now-empty glass on the counter and got up. "Come with me," he told her.
She obeyed, following him out of the kitchen, through the dining hall and the entrance hall into the living room. Terrence turned on the lights in the living room and made his way over to the painting covered with the orange velvet curtain. "Come," he told her.
Again she obeyed, moving toward him as he pulled the long cord that opened the curtain and revealed the painting. Sakura looked up at the picture again and felt the familiar rush of irritation seeing the image of the girl in the upper right corner. Sakura didn't know who the girl was, but she knew the girl had to be the same person who she saw that day at the bridge. The girl who kissed Sakura and made Kakashi think Sakura was a lesbian…
"What do you see when you look at this?" Terrence asked.
"Um… Naruto. Then there's Nana… or, Naruto, if he really is Nana… And Amunet Reiss. I don't recognize any of the others."
"Look harder," Terrence told her.
She looked. Her eyes went from face to face; what was she supposed to be seeing? She looked at the one who looked like an escaped convict, searching the picture for whatever it was she should be seeing. The only color that wasn't white, black, or blood red was the bright orange kerchief.
Her eyes darted toward the girl who made Sakura look like a lesbian. That girl held a baseball sized orange rubber ball in her hand and wore an orange sundress. She was eating orange ice cream.
Sakura looked at Nana. Orange toys surrounded him. Nana's sister Amunet had a wide orange ribbon in her hair.
She let her eyes glance at each and every person depicted in the portrait. They all had something in the same shade of orange that Naruto had claimed as his favorite color, even though it was a color Sakura had never seen worn by anyone else in the world (except now Vvim wore it). "Oh…" she couldn't help but murmur softly. "Oh, oh," realization was truly a shocking thing. "They're… oh…"
She looked down at the scribbling on the wall. "Do you know where your nana is?" it read.
"You get it now?" Terrence asked her.
"I think I understand… more than I feel comfortable with, actually. He was always really good with transformation jutsus. All the adults would cringe when he came around, as if they were anticipating him to use his stupid Sexy Jutsu at any moment. But now I have to beat him up, and I don't want to."
Terrence asked, "Why would you have to beat him up? Because he hadn't told you of his fake identities?"
"Two reasons," Sakura started, "and no, that's not one of them. Number one, he used that one," she pointed to the playful girl in the upper right corner, "to make me look like a lesbian to our Jounin leader." Terrence chuckled. "It's not funny. Two, he's dating Sasuke-kun under the identity of Amunet. Now, I have to beat him up 'cause Sasuke-kun's supposed to date me."
"You don't sound like you really want to date him, so is it because you are jealous you would beat him up, or because it would be habit?" Terrence should have been a psychiatrist. She thought about that; didn't she want to date Sasuke? She could have sworn she did. After all, she was president of the Sasuke Uchiha Fangirl Club (Ino would snort and say 'co-president', but Sakura wasn't paying heed to her inner-Ino). Didn't being a part of SUFC mean she was required to actually like the person?
"I guess, habit actually," she admitted honestly. She smiled ruefully at Terrence. "Just don't tell Ino; she'd have kittens if I told her I was giving up on dating Sasuke." He nodded; she turned the subject away from herself again. "If you don't mind my asking… what do you guys have against Gaara-san? He looked upset as he left. He didn't even say goodbye to Naruto."
Terrence turned his eyes up to the picture. A frown fixed on his face. "Oh, was that an expression of upset? I thought it was constipation."
"Of course it was an expression of upset," Sakura sighed.
"He asked us why we had the painting commissioned. More specifically, he asked why we wasted money on it. Do you have a family, Miss Haruno?" he asked quickly.
She was startled by the question enough to answer. "Yes…" she said.
"Imagine your family giving you up to an orphanage. Sounds unbelievable right?" She couldn't bring herself to answer. She wasn't sure if it was a straight question or a trick question. "Imagine your family dying away until the only one left is you, and you have to go to the orphanage because you have no one to care for you. Imagine being adopted, and then given up again whether it is because your new parents died or simply couldn't keep you or didn't want you. And being adopted again, and given up again, until you've lost all hope of ever even having family."
"It sounds awful…" Sakura shuddered. Was that what it was like for Naruto? Come to think of it, she didn't really know too much of his home life as a child. She knew he lived on his own since he was at least ten. Did he have foster parents? If he did, what were they like?
"It really is a terrible thing. And to add injury to the insult, by law, all children in a shinobi village who are orphans are forced to join the military."
Sakura nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. She had a choice. She begged her aunt and uncle to let her go to the academy. She wanted to go because her parents had gone. Sure, her aunt and uncle had their reservations about her going, but in the end they gave in and let her go.
"Naruto told us about that," Sakura told Terrence. "He felt awful about lying to you."
"Now imagine yourself as an orphan; you've been in and out of the orphanage ten times. Your foster parents decided they didn't want you, or maybe they died on a mission… Whatever it is that happened, the end result has left you hopeless and homeless, with just an old building and a handful of broken other kids. An old crank in the city's employ comes by to check up on everyone on Mondays and Fridays, but no one really cares what happens to you so long as you show up for shinobi training at seven AM every day. If you don't show up, you better be dead because otherwise its twenty lashes for disobedience… Imagine that as your life. You're forced to pick pockets just to make sure you can eat, and if you get caught picking pockets, they'll cut off your hand."
"That's terrible!" Sakura gasped. She could hardly believe her ears. Did Naruto have to live like that? Was that why he was such a prankster? Was his run-down apartment complex the orphanage of Konoha? She refrained from entering certain districts of Konoha unless she had to, because she knew they were bad districts. Only ANBU or very high ranking Jounin dared to enter District EE, because it was simply too dangerous. Chunin who dared enter District EE were practically ground up and spit out as hamburger meat. Naruto's old apartment was just barely next to District EE, but it wasn't quite inside it. And no one, not even the Kage, dared to enter District P without prior invitation from someone 'on the inside'. If they did go in without the invite, they'd find themselves leaving without everything they'd carried in—including clothes.
"That's life from an orphan's perspective." Terrence explained.
"But there should be laws preventing this sort of treatment!" Sakura exclaimed. She was barely able to keep her voice from waking up everyone else in the house. Just the thought of her friend having to steal for food made her feel ill at ease. What was his life like? And then to have most of the students hate Naruto simply because he was weird or different or an orphan or whatever reason they decided to use to excuse their hatred for the day… they were all just making his life worse…
"You can't make a law against something you won't admit is happening. If you make a law, you're admitting to the crimes. So the people of the city would turn their nose up at orphans and imagine us as greedy. They would imagine the orphan stumbling down the street with a dirty, bloody rag pressed to an infected stump as having gotten what he deserved. If the kid didn't bleed out by morning, then he'd die of infection a few days later." Terrence shook his head slightly. "I knew these things. I knew it all. That's why after my father took off, I suggested that mother and I leave the village."
"But why? If you had your mother, why didn't you stay? She would've," Terrence shook his head, cutting her off before she could finish her thoughts.
"She would've what? Survived Vvim's birth? She was old, Miss Haruno. Almost sixty. Not many women in these parts live past fifty, much less have a child at ten years past the expected expiration date. This city has to deal with the plague every five years, which knocks out almost five percent of the total population in less than a month. Mother wouldn't have survived the plague. This city is a dead city, we just haven't realized it yet."
Sakura was mortified by the way the conversation was going. She wasn't sure what was more frightening: how often the plague came, or the declaration that the city was dead. "Then why do you stay?" Sakura demanded. "Why do you stay in a city like this? In a city you clearly don't like, and in a city that doesn't like you?"
He closed his eyes. A small smile twitched his lips. Sakura wondered what was going through the boy's head. "We stay now because we have family. Mesa Theroux is always here. She used to stay in the room you're in, but we remodeled the nursery for her. Nana writes to us every week, and he calls us every two months. If he doesn't have time to write a full letter, he sends us a postcard, but that's only happened twice in the past two years."
"But couldn't you move to Konoha?" She figured she was probably at the point where she was grasping straws, but she simply couldn't fathom living in a city like Sunagakure permanently. She hadn't even been there a full day and she already wanted to hightail it back home again.
"Miss Haruno… Why did Nana stay in his city?" Terrence asked softly. "It certainly wasn't because people liked him, was it?" Sakura couldn't answer, because she knew it wasn't because people liked Naruto. Everyone hated the trickster. She supposed they all had their various reasons to hate him, but she couldn't think of a single legitimate one. "You asked why the Kazekage left looking displeased; it is because the others told him to—and I quote—go fuck himself. The others have lost precious family to the kage, as their family was assigned to attempt the assassination of the vessel of Shukaku. Whole families were told to kill the vessel of Shukaku, but none could lay a single blow. Nana fought the vessel of Shukaku and he survived. Not only did he survive, but he won."
"I know… I was there. Gaara-san took me hostage. I was unconscious for most of the battle, but he never fails to brag about it if the opportunity arises."
Terrence snorted slightly in amusement. "Everyone in this city is afraid of the Kazekage. We are taught to show him respect. Disrespect gets us a lashing from our parents."
"Naruto would never!" Sakura insisted. She couldn't imagine her Naruto doing such a vile thing as was done to him by the prison warden.
"Two years ago he adopted all of us. At first, we didn't know what to think. Then he bought the orphanage from the city. He was very devious. Major transactions made during the Sun Festival are half price. It should've cost him closer to three hundred thousand for everything, but he planned his transactions to take place during the Sun Festival. He completely played the city. He must have spent a good fifteen thousand dollars in hospital expenses for us too. He has money in a bank account that Mesa Theroux and I can access for groceries and repairs. And when Colten was heard cussing the vessel of Shukaku and the threat of Colten losing his tongue came up, Nana was quick to step in. Some of the things I heard him say that day turned even my ears pink. He has a foul mouth when he cares…"
Sakura couldn't help but smile. "Yeah… he does have a foul mouth sometimes. And I can picture him planning like that. I sometimes wonder if Naruto's a shinobi in disguise as a crook, or a crook in disguise as a shinobi. I've seen how sticky his hands can be. He seems like a dunce sometimes, but sometimes he's so good at what he does I wonder where the dunce went. It really confused me once—I actually got mad and beat him up, thinking he was a stranger who had infiltrated our team."
Terrence smiled back at Sakura. "Are you feeling at all tired? It's going on four thirty AM."
"I wish… now I'm just awake. There'll be no sleep for me tonight. You go ahead; I think I'll just relax on one of your many couches, if that's alright."
"The orange pouf there is the most comfortable. We spoil Vvim, so when we bought the furniture for this set-up, we bought hers' special order. It's not easy getting that color on a piece of furniture." He grinned slightly and she smiled back. "Would you like the lights on or should I turn them off?"
"They can be off. And congratulations on your graduation. Make sure you talk to myself, Fuyumi, or Ino some time tomorrow so we can check the burn on your leg. I don't really want it to get infected."
Terrence took her hand gently in his and lifted it to his lips. He placed a delicate kiss on her knuckles, causing her cheeks to become enflamed. His eyes danced merrily as he locked her eyes with his. "Is it safe to assume that would be an invitation to see you again, Miss Haruno?"
Sakura bit back another blush, and forced herself to frown (oh, she really wanted to smile). "Seeing as I will be here for the next six months, I would suppose so. But don't go assuming too much or you'll make an ass out of everybody involved." He chuckled and uttered something in Suni. She cursed not knowing the language. "What did you say?" she had to ask.
His eyes twinkled again. "I said I assume I know why nothing more than a few stories and a picture has inspired Vvim to be just like you."
"What do you mean?" Sakura had to force herself to stay still. Her inner self wanted to move up to Terrence and—and she didn't know what then. She would either shake him until he blabbed all his inner thoughts, or kiss him… The boy was better looking than Sasuke was, especially with his adorable—lickable, her inner self provided—freckles, and he was friendlier and more approachable than Sasuke.
"You are beautiful, strong, and—if the stories Nana writes us of you are true—determined and kind. These are always admirable features in a woman." He gave her another smile, and another kiss to her knuckles before he released her and stood straight again. "I hope you get some rest."
Terrence left her there then, winking at her before he shut off the light and slid the doors closed on his exit. She stared at the closed doors for a moment. The living room was barely lit up by a few night lights around the place and the light from the street lamps outside.
Basically the gist of what she could understand from Terrence was that the kids knew disrespect could get them killed, but Naruto showed them sometimes disrespect was necessary—and the kids (well, excluding Vvim who obviously had no discretion at all if the earlier display said anything) had taken the lesson to heart.
The kids hated Gaara because he took their family from them. Sakura wondered about that; she knew Gaara fairly well. Or at least, she liked to think she did. She liked to think she could understand Gaara. He was raised to be nothing more than a weapon—a tool—for the use of the city. The kids were also being raised as weapons, and then Naruto came along.
Naruto was a shinobi from another village. He would never be asked by Sunagakure to assassinate Gaara, and even if he were asked to do so by Konoha, the likelihood of him doing it was slim. Naruto would probably swallow his tongue whole before he killed someone he thought of as a friend, and only the heavens knew how Naruto came to be Gaara's friend and vice versa, but it happened. And Naruto had already beaten Gaara once, so the kids were reassured if it happened once it could happen again.
They had a family that was separated by an entire desert, but Naruto (being that he was Naruto and somehow he could make people either like him or try to kill him with a single action—how did he do that anyway?) kept the ties strong through weekly letters and infrequent phone calls. She was going to have to beat Naruto up even more now, because the dope could write to everyone in Suna once a week but he hadn't dropped her a single letter not even once in two and a half years. He didn't even send a postcard. Nothing!
She was sure he had his reasons.
Sakura turned her head to look back at the painting of Naruto and his many counterparts. It was hard to see in the dark, but she could understand so much more from her talk with Terrence than she believed he meant her to understand. She saw the image of the real Naruto holding the orb with the view of an orange tree so perfect, so full of life inside it, and she knew why they had Naruto holding that in his hand instead of any number of other ways they could have had Naruto drawn.
It was because Naruto really was just like that. He was life. He held life in his hands as preciously as that picture showed him to do. He valued life above all else. His ' Ninja Way' was a childish hope that he would not have to take life. He had declared on many occasions that he wouldn't be like everyone else. He would find his own way. And there he was, displayed with the fragile orb of life in his hands. He could easily let life slip through his fingers, but his hands were firm.
And he was the most beautiful she'd ever seen him, displayed in that painting. His lips were just slightly tilted in a serene smile; he was happy. He'd probably get mad if she ever called him beautiful to his face. Her eyes fell on the image of the lonely, malnourished boy with orange hair. She let her eyes wander the faces of the darkened painting, though it was harder to see with only the light from a few nightlights hidden behind furniture and the light from the street lamps streaming from the windows.
Then her mind brought up a picture of Naruto. Of the real Naruto, not of each of the eleven different faces of Naruto in the painting. Her only hint that they were all Naruto was that gaudy orange, and the fact that she knew Naruto was Nana. It made sense, didn't it? He could be all those things. He could be the family man. He could be a hunter. He could be dark and spooky like a convict sometimes. He could be quite dysfunctional and he could be completely lost and head down the wrong road even if the paths were obviously labeled "do not go this way or certain death will meet you" and "safety, this way". He could be provocative, and he could be playful. He could be a bookworm and he could be a thief. He could be the tough, no nonsense type if he had to be, and he could seem like he was lonely as hell even when he was among friends.
But above all… he was always Naruto. He was always there for his friends or his enemies or strangers he just met on the road. He was life; he was like an orange. If Sakura were to peel back the outer layer, she would find the many pieces that was him. She could break off one of those pieces, but it didn't matter if it were separate because it was still a part of who he was. She might not like that he was perverted and provocative at times, but that was all a part of who he was. One moment he could be one thing, and the next he could be another… just like each bite of an orange. One might be sweet, and another might be a bit bitter or sour.
She didn't have to like each piece of him to like who he was as a whole. She didn't have to like each piece of him to be completely satisfied with him. Maybe that was why he loved the color orange? As she thought more about it, she couldn't help but think that the color orange symbolized the many different aspects of life. It really was a beautiful color.
And in the end, she thought, he's the one who has to cope with these pieces of himself. Her eyes fell on the greasy convict. The image of that man was obviously the killer in Naruto. She had no doubt Naruto had the hardest time coping with that part of himself.
She turned around and looked for the suggested orange pouf chair. It was hard to miss. It was big enough to fit the rear end of an ogre. She walked toward it, but stumbled when something caught her foot unexpectedly. Years of training didn't bother saving her knees from the fall. Kakashi would scold her if he knew she tripped; awareness of one's surroundings was one of his many lessons to learn.
Sakura twisted to find out what had caused her to fall. She'd snagged her foot on the strap to Naruto's hastily discarded travel pack. He was still using the same one he used when they first teamed up at age eleven. He'd been so happy to have the bag, even though it was from a second-hand shop.
Looking at it close up told her he really needed a new bag. His careless actions to take off his bag earlier had caused the flap button to rip off, and the zipper was broken so a bunch of his things had spilled out on the floor. If she had to guess, she would say the zipper had been broken for a while. The bag's straps had broken off many times, but it looked like Naruto had sewn them back on just as many times. Patches covered some places on the bag where simple sewing wouldn't work, though Naruto was so bad at sewing the threads were coming off on some of them.
She could remember him sitting by the fire on missions, sewing the tears in his jacket. He always sang the same annoying song. "I've got a holey jacket, my jacket's full of holes. I'm sewing the holes in my jacket, so I can wear my jacket." If it was his bag that had received the abuse, he'd sing the song about his bag. He was quite obnoxious when he sang that song. Sasuke always shot death glares at Naruto every time he sang the song. Or the rubber ducky song. Sasuke hated the rubber ducky song.
She began picking up Naruto's things and carefully placing it in the bag again. When Naruto woke up, she was going to have to talk him into buying a new travel pack. She was worried just holding the bag would cause it to fall apart. If he really was Nana, he shouldn't have too many money issues.
She put his sewing kit back in his pack—if it could be called a sewing kit. All it consisted of was a little needle and a spool of thread. He took patches out of an old black shirt if he needed them. At least his 'sewing kit' had gotten smaller over the past couple of years. He used to carry around a giant ball of yarn and a yarn needle.
Sakura refolded his expensive hakama and haori. It was full of wrinkles. Hopefully they would press out, because she highly doubted a place like Sunagakure would have a dry cleaners shop, especially since it involved steaming out wrinkles and water wasn't exactly in abundance. But she really liked Naruto's dress clothes. She really wanted to see what he looked like in them. Sasuke looked funny in them (Ino had gotten her a picture of it, and Sakura laughed for hours after seeing it). Naruto, on the other hand, seemed to know how to wear orange.
She carefully put the clothes back in the bag. The next thing she picked up was a small bag. It was just like a handful of other bags that had spilled out from the bag. She counted seven of them on the floor. On a hunch, she looked in the torn travel bag (after checking to make sure she was truly alone in the room, since she knew she was poking in stuff she shouldn't) and found three more of the smaller bags, totaling ten.
She opened one of the small bags and shifted through it. Her hunch had proven correct. These ten bags were home to Naruto's 'others'. The bag she was looking in had an unmarked forehead protector, more than two dozen circular blades carefully protected in a proper leather holster similar to what Sakura kept her shuriken in, an entire set of kunai and the nin-kits to keep them in, and an ID card written in another language.
She really hoped all his identities didn't have an entire new set of weapons, because if he had a full set of weapons for all ten of his identities plus himself, the weight of his bag would be astronomical. She knew the 'Nana' identity was a civilian, but 'Amunet' was a kunoichi, and whoever the serious looking woman with the high-top pony tail was supposed to be was displayed as a kunoichi as well.
She replaced everything back in the small bag and zipped it back up, then put the small bags back in the travel pack. Some of the small bags were nearly empty so she had to assume there wasn't much in it, if anything.
The last items to have fallen out of the travel pack were a pair of orange boxers littered with little green frogs (she should have known) and two books. One looked very old and was bound in worn leather. She recognized that as the "Make-Out Paradise" book he'd been reading the day they kissed under the bridge. Just thinking about that kiss made her insides melt. She didn't have too many other experiences to judge the kiss against, but it was something very special…
She folded up Naruto's boxers (blushing even as she did it) and put them back in the travel pack, then picked up the pervert book. What was it about those sort of books that made people read them? She picked up the second book. It looked newer than the first. She took the books over by one of the windows and opened the old book.
The first thing she noticed was that it wasn't a make-out book. Naruto had lied to her. She read a few lines of it and realized the book was either a fiction story Naruto was writing or else it was the journey log of someone from his family. Judging by how old and brittle the book appeared to be and by the fact that each entry was dated years before Naruto was born, and the fact that the handwriting was much neater than Naruto's scribbles, she was betting it was the latter.
She flipped through a few pages, scanning for anything at all interesting but finding nothing. Finally she skipped to the last entry.
October 17. If anyone should have found this journey log, please tell Naruto thanks from his father, and that it wasn't his mother's fault. And tell him I'm sorry, but he did the right thing. It's not easy to do the right thing when you can change everything. I'm glad to see he grew up so well. I love you, Naruto. Stay strong.
Sakura stared at the page. She just wanted to see what the date of the last entry was. Why didn't Naruto just tell her the book was his father's journey log? She always assumed he never had parents. That was what everyone always said. Naruto was left on the Third Hokage's doorstep with a blanket wrapped around him and his name written on a piece of paper. Everyone assumed his parents were lost during the Kyuubi attack.
Of course, that made Sakura question how Naruto's birthday was October 7 and everyone knew that, yet the story was that Naruto was born during the Kyuubi attack which didn't happen until ten days after he was born.
What wasn't the fault of Naruto's mother? And what could a ten-day-old baby possibly do that could be considered the 'right thing'? Sakura didn't really think ten-days-old could be considered "grown up well". And what exactly would change if Naruto did the wrong thing?
She closed the old book and opened the new one. She knew she was poking her nose into business that didn't concern her, but it was as if today made Naruto more mysterious than Sasuke had ever been. Everyone knew what happened to Sasuke and why he spent his whole life brooding over this thing or that thing. But there was so little that she actually knew about Naruto that Naruto himself didn't tell her! It was time she started to get answers.
She would go through the old book again and read more of it later, in case it had anything else interesting that could explain the strange questions brought up by the final entry. For now, she opened the new book and looked at the first page. It was also a book of pages, but Naruto's familiar scribbles filled up this book. It was hard to decipher, but she'd read worse things.
I'm scared. It's dark. I just spent ten minutes puking in a trash can. My whole body stinks of sweat. I'm scared if I close my eyes I'll have another nightmare. They feel so real to me. Jiraiya said nightmares are the unpleasant side effect of being a shinobi they don't advertise to the rest of the world. But this is really bad. I barely even remember what I dreamt, but I know it was awful.
My whole body shakes when I wake up from a nightmare, so bad that walking is impossible. Jiraiya left me alone again tonight. He said he was going to get me something to calm my nerves. If he brings me back a bottle of alcohol, I'm going to smash it on his head and stab him with the damn shards. How many nightmares am I going to have before something gives?
It comes with the job, Jiraiya tells me, but I've been a shinobi for almost three years, except they didn't start until Sasuke handed me my ass at the Valley of Ends. The first one was in the hospital after Kakashi brought me back. Jiraiya told me it's normal for a shinobi to have nightmares, but it's a sign of insanity to write down the nightmare. He got real mad when I tried to write down my last nightmare. I thought he was going to hit me, but he didn't. He said I shouldn't try to preserve the memory of these horrible occasions.
That's why I'm writing this now while he's gone. I have to write this down because I have to prove to him my nightmares aren't just nightmares. He says they're normal. He said that anyone who can live the life of a shinobi and never have a nightmare is insane. But I've had normal nightmares before. I've lived through the death of Haku so many times—but those are normal. I remember those. I remember every single moment of those nightmares. When I dream of the invasion of ramen noodles trying to take over the world and I have to be the hero and eat it all, that's normal and I remember.
These nightmares aren't normal. I remember only bits and pieces. At first, I couldn't remember anything at all, but the more I have these nightmares, the more I am able to remember bits and pieces of them. Last nights' was the worst. There was blood, a lot of blood. I remember the blood and I remember the body. Its in a bathtub. One leg is over the edge of the tub, but the rest of the body is submerged. The water is too red to see who it is in the tub. That's all I can remember of it, but I know there was more.
I know there was more and I know it was real. I don't mean real like how dreams can feel real. I mean it felt like I was right there. It felt like I was standing right next to the tub. And now I'm naked, scared shitless of myself, hiding under the bed writing this because when I woke up my arms were covered in blood.
Jiraiya says its normal.
I don't think so. Normal isn't waking up with blood covered arms. Normal isn't waking up with no logical clue how the blood got there. Normal isn't puking and sobbing on the floor of the shower, trying to figure out what the hell I just did. But what the hell. I've never been normal before.
Sakura felt herself shake slightly in apprehension. This was Naruto's journal. There was a sick feeling in her gut. It sounded to her like he had a mental disorder, perhaps multiple personality disorder, if he was 'falling asleep' and 'waking up' with no idea how things changed in the meantime. Her eyes landed on the picture of all Naruto's identities… and then on the greasy convict looking one.
No. It wasn't possible. Jiraiya was there. Jiraiya would know. And if something was wrong with Naruto, Tsunade would take care of it. Except the childish reassurances weren't doing anything for her. Internally she was growing worried. But why did Jiraiya say it was bad to write down a nightmare? Sakura had a dream journal. By writing it down, she felt it helped her cope with the nightmare, and by writing down her good dreams too, she could tell how many good dreams she had versus bad dreams and realize that it didn't happen as often as she thought. So why would Jiraiya say such a thing?
There was still more written. Sakura turned to the next page. She had to skip several pages because they were the bits and pieces of dreams Naruto could remember. She stopped at one entry when she scanned the word "avoid".
I've begun to notice when I'm going to have a nightmare. It's been two full weeks and I haven't had one, because I figured out how to avoid them. It leaves me very tired, but it's a lot better than having a nightmare every other day.
That was definitely good news. If he could avoid the episode, and he was making a conscious effort to avoid them, then he wasn't encouraging them. If he wasn't actually encouraging the episode, then he surely he didn't really want to do whatever it was he was doing…right? But she couldn't bring herself to be fully reassured because so far all the entries had simply been about the nightmares… and there was still plenty of entries left.
She set the book down on her lap and glanced out the window. The sky was gray and she could hear movement upstairs. From her estimations of the layout of the house, Naruto's 'office' was at the front of the house above the living room, and the movement was coming from the general location she'd heard the crash earlier that day when Naruto went to get 'the box' from his mail pile in his office. If she were to guess anything, Naruto was up. If she wanted to make sure she didn't get caught with his stuff, she probably should put the books back.
Sakura shut the book with a frown and crossed the room, replacing it in Naruto's bag quietly. Then she lay on Vvim's special chair and decided to pretend to be asleep as more and more thoughts whirled around her head. Naruto was her best friend. He wasn't psychotic. He was her teammate. He was a good person. But as much as she told herself these things, the more worried she became. Naruto fell asleep and woke up with blood on his hands.
"I'll call Tsunade-sama..." she determined, hugging her knees to her. If anyone knew anything other than Jiraiya, it would be Tsunade. And if Tsunade wasn't made aware of the situation previously, then Tsunade could find out from Jiraiya what was up with Naruto and hopefully the Hokage could put Sakura's worries to rest. "I'll call her later today..."
And then Sakura, exhausted from such a long day, finally slept. She woke a few hours later with an old throw covering her. The first sight she saw was Terrence. He was doing something with the wires on the entertainment center. She was surprised to find Lee was helping. At first she thought Lee might be present only to do the heavy lifting, but as she watched she realized Lee was actually teaching Terrence. Sakura watched them for a few long moments until the need to go to the bathroom became too large to remain unnoticed.
She wasn't going to enjoy this stay in Suna for so many reasons...
THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE FEEDBACK GUYS! Ichihime (Naruto kept in contact through letters and sent them pictures of each self so they knew who to look for if they needed help), supersillee06 (A four-some was mentioned too, you know.), Dark Inu Fan (She's going to shoot her mouth plenty, and it's going to get plenty of people in trouble), Iseriad (looking forward to more reviews), loki09 aka ttre208 (it is NOT the following: Gaara/Naruto, Sasuke/Naruto, Sakura/Fuyumi, Sakura/Ino, Gaara/Sasuke, Gaara/Sasuke/Naruto threesome, Sakura/Kagome, Gaara/Kagome, Naruto/Kagome.), Natsumi Tsuchi-Ookami (They don't all know that Naruto is all of them... They only know he's Nana and himself so far), DarkRavie (I look forward to another review!), Arcander (you should've done your homework...), and of course, to everyone else who reviewed chapter 49 after I posted chapter 50.
ANSWER: I'm still unsure about this chapter, so feedback me, please!
And I knew there was something weird about him, 'cause when I turned around he was pulling a big palm tree right up out of the ground and swatting those Charlies with it, from here to kingdom come ('cause they didn't review).
