III. Faust
"Yeah, we're heading out now." Frowning, Naruto reaches for the small receiver nestled behind his ear, giving it a few quick taps. "Damn sand keeps getting all over the place. Almost makes me miss the old training regs. At least nothing could get—"
Sasuke spares a glance behind him, Naruto not quite walking beside him. There's enough space between them to ensure he's walking ahead, a deliberate position that makes it easier for Naruto to act at a moment's notice. It's a tactical decision on Naruto's part, an attempt to provide some semblance of cover despite the fact that if anyone were to attack them, which Itachi (and Naruto, not surprisingly, by extension) believes is only inevitable; left this exposed travelling in the middle of an open desert would pretty much mean they're SOL.
He's too tired to fight Naruto about it, though, still trying to recuperate from the past few days, instead gleaning what he can from listening to Naruto's conversation with Itachi, trying to stave off a mounting irritation at the fact he's being overlooked again.
It's been a regular occurrence for some time now, his brother and best friend-cum-whatever their relationship makes them now, speaking over him as if he isn't there, treating him as if he couldn't possibly understand how the world exists outside the base. Trying to convince them he knows more than they want to believe would be an exercise in futility.
It didn't bother him so much when he was younger, being told certain things were beyond him, when both he and Naruto could be easily placated with simple explanations that assured them it was okay not to understand. Except now that once constant only pertains to him, only continues to drive home how much different his and Naruto's lives have become.
All those nights he and Naruto spent learning everything they could about being a pilot, helping Naruto study when it came to the subjects it sometimes took him a little longer to understand, teasing him over his inability not to ramble despite passing his first field communications test—it wasn't entirely altruistic, somewhat of an attempt to live vicariously through Naruto.
Naruto sniffs, absently tugging on the collar of his black t-shirt, jostling the sleek, black goggles hanging from around his neck. "And that's the real problem. Probably could get away with the damage to the hull."
Yet despite the more obvious differences further branding who they've become, there are still parts of Naruto, things about him fundamental to person he is that haven't changed at all.
"It's because I like having pockets," Naruto once said a few days after returning from his first training mission, with the utmost seriousness, placing both hands on Sasuke's shoulders, when Sasuke had asked about the baggy cargo pants he practically lived in outside the Academy; it made Naruto seem incredibly flashy at times, even without that loud orange jacket, dressed up in bright blues and reds, and yet somehow it still seemed fitting, Naruto's self-declared interpretation of what made an acceptable dress code.
How Naruto was even able to find regulation clothes in those colours, he still doesn't know.
"And it's really, really important to have pockets. Seriously."
"Seriously, Itachi," Naruto continues, faced scrunched in annoyance, tapping again on his earpiece. "I really do think we lucked out there.
"But even when everything's back online, with a ship like that, who knows how sensitive the equipment is. It's not enough to just get it up and running. Got to make sure it can hold out long enough to get us out of here, too.
"I mean, it's enough of a pain that we get shot down and stranded on a desert planet. So, it only makes sense we somehow ended up crash landing in quicksand, right. Why else wouldn't we?"
It's not as bad as Naruto's making it out to be. Admittedly, the ship's protruding from the base of a considerably tall star dune, precariously close to a small basin, surrounded by even taller dunes leading into vast stretches of rippled white sand, offering only just glimpses of sparse vegetation visible in the very far off distance. At least it's not dry quicksand, which probably explains whatever underground water source that's been sustaining Juugo in the prison all this time.
The storm did make it worse, though, moving sand to cover a good portion of the ship and further substantiating Naruto's concerns about granules finding their way into the more sensitive parts of the ship, possible engine ingestion, among a potential slew of electronic problems, never mind the small number of internal systems currently exposed due to the relatively minor damage done to the hull.
The ship still wasn't able to perform an accurate self-diagnostic, let alone connect to Naruto's PCD, not when the power kept cutting off mid-start. With so many things seemingly gone wrong, they hadn't been able to assess much of anything, and could only throw back and forth ideas to see who could come up with the best (what Naruto aptly called) scientific wild-ass guess.
"But other than that one tiny little clusterfuck," Naruto says, "everything else checks out for now."
Really, calling the situation a clusterfuck is well above putting it lightly, but it's still a little weird hearing Naruto speak to Itachi like that, maybe more so in the sense that Itachi allows Naruto to speak to him so casually, despite knowing Naruto is notorious for forgoing formalities with people he's especially close to.
He's not jealous of their relationship, not so much anymore, because he's told himself often enough he's mature enough to accept the fact that Uchiha Itachi's existence isn't solely limited to being his older brother.
"Not that far off. Should make it back in an hour or so."
Sighing, Sasuke counts the breaths shallow that follow coming out a little more uneven, a little more slow. He removes the hood from over his head, welcoming the cool respite of a light breeze after prolonged exposure to the heat, but he starts to stray behind a little,lingers between steps a second too long.
It's one of those times he doesn't mind being overlooked, would rather be wholly unnoticed than the single focus of an overbearing concern.
Unfortunately, Naruto could be the worst kind of inopportunely attentive.
"Before it gets too dark," Naruto says, slowing down to take up the slight variance in pace, keeping Sasuke in his immediate line of sight. "Or too cold."
He blocks from his peripheral Naruto's concerned frown, evades the arm already reaching out to steady him, and straightens on his own, stepping away from Naruto.
He knows he doesn't have Naruto's ample reserves, that much he can grudgingly admit, but even after healing Naruto's arm and the backlash from discharging the corrupted magic imbued in Juugo's collar, having these recurring bouts of fatigue, he didn't think the use of his life magic would affect him this much.
It's not that much farther, though. He just has to wait a little longer for this one to pass, too.
"Definitely, yeah." Naruto sends him another frown, but doesn't mention the near fall to Itachi.
"Yeah, I will. Uzumaki out." He taps on his earpiece, cutting off the line to Itachi. With the back of his hand, he wipes at the corner of one eye, pushing further up his forehead a torn piece of cloth he turned into a makeshift sweatband.
"Itachi and Juugo are all right," he says, without Sasuke even having to ask. "Another storm might be heading our way, but Itachi said it could still change direction, too. Hard to tell, when most of these winds keep coming from different directions."
"Mm."
"…why are you still so tired, Sasuke?"
"It's nothing."
"No, it's not nothing. It's already been a day. Shouldn't you be okay by now?"
"Leave it alone, Naruto."
"Whatever happened when you messed with that collar, I know it did something to you, Sasuke. Don't tell me it didn't. It had to. With how much you had to keep leaning on me yesterday, it must've been really bad for you to still be so—"
"I said leave it alone. I'm fine."
"Yeah, sure. Of course, you're fine. We're all fine. Everything's fine. Everything's always fine, and you just—"
He already had to deal with getting berated by his brother, being told how foolish he'd been, for yet again putting himself in a vulnerable position: not only releasing Juugo from the collar, but willingly tampering with something that'd had such an adverse effect on him.
After hearing it from Itachi, he's really not in the mood to deal with hearing it from Naruto, too. Because despite recognising the truth in Itachi words, despite realising the faults in his own actions, it's still hard to ignore the persistent notion that if their positions were reversed, if it were Naruto instead, his brother would've treated Naruto differently.
Naruto breathes out, unclenching the fist at his side, purposely trailing behind, in his wake the occasional wisp of wind blotting their footprints with sand. "Should be good by now," he says, voice strained to stay even. With a slight nod, he gestures towards the black canteen shared between them, clipped onto the dark grey belt hanging skewed from around Sasuke's hips.
Sasuke reaches for the soft plastic canteen encased in a matching nylon pouch, to the right of the waist bag with two legs straps secured around his thigh. He flips open the cap and takes a small sip, shrugging off the aftertaste from the purification tablet Naruto used after refilling canteen at the basin. He doesn't close the cap, offering the canteen to Naruto still hovering too close.
The slight brush of their hands is a fleeting touch, from Naruto passed along a vehement warmth that does little to undermine the remnants of Itachi's discrete cold, the worst attempt at being subtle, but when he turns to glance beside him, Naruto's already looking away.
…
For all Naruto's complaining about being back in the cave again, Sasuke thinks being in a cave is much more preferable to being trapped in an underground crypt. It'd be somewhat of a disservice to call it a mere cave, though. It's actually one of many cave dwellings, part of an extensive and intricate network of tunnels, a good deal of them dug into the cliffside of a gorge, as least forty metres high, some interconnected from above, altogether a seemingly endless maze of rooms carved from hard layers of sculpted, ashen rock—the room they're in now, one of the more stable ones Itachi had found shelter in after the storm, interestingly enough, there are murals on the wall.
The already scarce spread of colour significantly dulled, on the expanse of wall not yet fully eroded, there were a few glyphs he was able to make out, a series of images portraying what looked to be someone manipulating fire magic, an actual depiction of a fire elemental, from a mural on a planet that's not even charted on their maps.
With so much still unknown about the origins of magic users, with no established science behind the biology of magic users, or magic usage in general, all but non-existent any information about life users and what it means to have life magic, it only makes sense, even if only to take his mind off the situation they're in now, that he's going to jump on the opportunity to learn more.
Although, maybe even more surprising than finding the murals, is how old they seemed. When he'd tried to describe the atmosphere on Barrah, how it apparently affects his magic, marginally oppressive is what he wanted to say, for lack of a better way to explain it, but old turns out to be more fitting. Because there really is something old about Barrah, almost saturates it something old enough to feel ancient, lingers like an uncertainty memory, brings out of him a sort of surreal consciousness that reminds him too strongly of the brief exposure he's had to Kyuubi's raw magic.
He did ask Juugo about the glyphs. Not entirely unexpected, Juugo didn't have the answers he wanted, yet even then the only answer Juugo said he could give was ambiguous at best, if not the basis for the kinds of questions he was having trouble trying to articulate.
"Though not the work of the people from my village, this truly is the work of the people of Barrah," Juugo had said, although with no small amount of awe and an uncomfortably renewed sense of reverence directed towards him.
Itachi hadn't been as approachable, near apathetic despite the brusque nature of his questions, the tension between them heavier still when Itachi walked him to a more isolated dwelling, stood before him impassive, waiting for him to explain the incident surrounding the removal of Juugo's collar.
Naruto's the one who thought he might be interested in the murals, after tinkering with a circumscribed MDP he'd picked up from the ship yesterday, doing his best to fill the increasingly lengthy periods of silence during the slow four-hour hike from the ship back to the cave, not including the time it took to scale the steep rock face.
Sasuke was able to record footage of the mural with the data pad last night, though, earlier this morning jotted down a few notes, alongside the batch of photos he took, before Itachi and Juugo set out for the dale Juugo had mentioned.
Sliding a finger across the small screen, he finishes up with his latest revision, while Naruto's still outside scoping the area begins to look over his notes again, not for the first time since yesterday wondering if this is an instance of him searching too deeply for a connection he simply wants to be there.
If the SatCom wasn't down, he wouldn't hesitate to send his findings to Tenten. If the SatCom wasn't down, they'd probably be off Barrah by now.
But if (when, Naruto likes to keep correcting him) they get back home, he'll try to cross-reference the mural and what he knows now about Barrah with information from the PDH. See if he can drag Tenten from the shooting range long enough to make it to the library, although it probably wouldn't take much to convince her.
They've known each other for a little over three years, brought together by a shared interest in magic lore; she'd been doing tentative research about it on her own, stemmed from a then growing fascination with the Second Great War—one day, she noticed him in the library, attention caught by the book she'd been searching for stacked high on his table, and simply sat next to him.
She's one of the few friends he hadn't met through Naruto, one of the few people who hadn't immediately recognised him as the life user who happened to live on base. Although she's not a magic user, she's a year above Naruto's graduating class, training to be a weapons technology specialist. If she hadn't applied for the Academy, she'd probably be an academic, an archaeologist like her parents were. That, or a fortune teller.
"To be an academic is to be relentless in the pursuit of knowledge, in an essentially dead field," she'd used to joke in the beginning, more often on those rare days when she suddenly realised she was an orphan at fifteen, remembered that she lost her parents during that disaster in Tollan, because she suddenly couldn't forget the base wasn't her first home.
"I don't have magic like some of the other trainees at the Academy, but I wanted to come here because I didn't want to feel so helpless anymore. Because I didn't want someone else to end up like me. And that's why I'm still here. Because I still want to believe I really can make a difference out there."
On those rare days she'd quietly seek him out, unknowingly drawn to him for reasons she wouldn't understand until he told her later, suddenly, having empathy was something he didn't mind so much.
"But in a world like this, Sasuke, even if it is easier to believe in destiny, to believe we're greater than what we probably are, wanting to determine our own fate, I think that's what really makes us stand apart."
"…there's still time," he teased, with a light smile she responded to in kind. "If you change your mind about fortune telling. I could introduce you to a few people who'd probably do a lot better with it."
"Yeah, I think I'll leave the politics to you. But I guess being a fortune teller could work out for me, too, you know." She laughed then, grey eyes keen, yet paired with an odd sort of wistful grin. "One does mean fate after all. Two is luck," she said, counting off with her fingers, "and then there's feng shui.
"But if I decide to stay at the Academy, if I keep pushing myself to become even stronger, three years from now, do you think I'll be old enough to make a difference in the world we live in?"
He turns off the MDP and slips it back into his holster bag, fingers running absently along the distressed material.
Naruto still hasn't come back yet, left with only his jacket for extra padding, leaving Sasuke with the emergency blanket; he's better acclimated to harsher climates than most people, with a naturally higher tolerance to the heat and cold, one of those inherent abilities often blurring the line between what may have been Naruto's latent potential and the direct effect of Kyuubi's magic giving him abilities Naruto otherwise wouldn't have.
For as long as Kyuubi's been sealed inside him, though, it's a moot point either way.
Legs folded underneath him, he shifts beneath the thermal blanket and the frayed quilt Juugo had given him placed over his lap, unable to supress a wide yawn. They agreed Naruto was going to take first watch, to let him to catch up on sleep. Or rather Naruto said he was going to take first watch, and Sasuke didn't have anything productive to add the short-lived conversation. Still tired and yet too restless to actually get much of anything close to resembling sleep.
He hadn't spent that much time focusing on the possible implications of the mural. As soon as they returned from the ship, he'd been going over Naruto's preliminary readings, over and over reviewing the ship's schematics, hoping to get a better idea of what was wrong through process of elimination. He was trying to keep himself busy, trying to make himself useful, trying not to think of Itachi.
It hasn't even been a day since Itachi split them up, yet it manages to feel longer after parting on such stilted terms, and the continued separation from his brother doesn't do much to mitigate a gnawing sense of discomfort, even less after Naruto told him Itachi and Juugo had discovered the unmarked ship that had attacked them.
It was a moderate two-person vessel. The kind not meant to handle atmospheric entry, barely anything left of the charred remains to even remotely suggest the slightest possibility anyone could've survived the wreckage, but it hadn't been enough to nullify whatever initial suspicions Itachi held. It made them worse. Although they weren't any closer to identifying the ship, having affirmation that a small fighter equipped with working weapons was even able to fly in neutral territory didn't really bode well.
He doesn't want to say he's worried, but it does bother him, because he knows his brother well enough to know his motivations. He knows exactly why his brother thought it better to separate them.
Itachi could be remarkably intuitive, brutal in his own conviction at times. While he doesn't trust Juugo, which, Sasuke will concede, is understandable for someone in Itachi's position, if the Snake Charmer who did conduct experiments on Juugo and his people is Orochimaru, finding any sort of incriminating evidence against Orochimaru could provide a substantial blow to both Orochimaru's political clout and the higher-ups who've been supporting him financially, especially if Orochimaru has been mining ore to make Magdunium alloy.
However, this deliberate separation was more for his and Naruto's benefit than anything else, to make them less of a target; Itachi wouldn't take the time to cover his tracks, but he told Naruto to take as many precautions as possible, not wanting them to wander far from the ship or a steady water supply. Working under the assumption possible pursuers wouldn't be far behind, however slight the advantage, it was a bid he made to better their odds of escape.
Obviously, Itachi knows more than he's willing to let on, but whether the risks of remaining together as a group outweigh the risks of travelling apart, Sasuke honestly can't say.
"…still pretty quiet." The words resonate within the cave, shuffled into light footfalls echoed static, edging closer, and Sasuke looks up at Naruto's arrival.
Naruto stops at the cave entrance, paused beneath the misshapen arched threshold of conglomerate rock. Loose sediment falls around him and settles among the various pieces of rock spread across the ground. "You can't see our stars here. You can't see any of the stars from Barrah. Did you notice that?"
Sasuke can't say he'd been paying enough attention to notice, really. It's a little surprising Naruto did. Still, it makes some kind of sense, adding more credence to what Juugo said about the Faceless creating a barrier around Barrah. Legend or not, it's not unheard of for oral traditions to be based off some aspect of truth.
"No moons, either."
"Mm."
"Not being able to see any stars in a place like this, it's kind of lonely, don't you think?" Naruto's hand stills near the raised collar of his jacket, fingers toying with the zipper pulled all the way up to the top. Not waiting for an answer, he begins to unzip his jacket. The zipper stops at his chest, exposing the neckline of a black shirt. "I wonder how Juugo survived for so long.
"By the way," he adds, stepping away from the threshold and making his way further into cave. "Itachi said Juugo asked about you again, if you were doing okay."
Sasuke pulls on the cuff of his jacket, watching Naruto bypassing the small fire that brightens the unexpectedly large enclosure. Situated this deeply within the cave offers a modest protection against the cold, presumably a sort of built-in precaution to the weather conditions at night, a result of the intricate system of tunnels and rooms created by people who may have been Juugo's ancestors.
"I told him and Juugo you said hi."
"Did you."
Stopped across from him, Naruto sighs, fingers kneading the side of his neck. "Still no sign of anything from their end, either."
Sasuke yanks on the leg of the blue cargo pantstucked into Naruto's boots, effectively causing him to stumble.
Brought down with a yelp, Naruto lands on his backside, catching himself on the floor with his hands, legs bent, both knees upright, gaze pinned on Sasuke with an annoyed glower. "What'd you have to go and do that for, huh?"
"Give me your hands."
"Why do you need my hands?" Glower disappeared, Naruto blinks, but he crosses his legs and scoots closer, holding out his hands for Sasuke to take.
"Didn't you have enough room in one of those pockets for a pair of gloves?"
"Give me a break, Sasuke. I thought we'd be cooped up in that fancy resort for the next week. Not here. And then I had to pack my suit, the one Dad made me get tailored last month." Naruto groans. "How much you want to bet Mom won't believe me when I tell her my really nice dress clothes got lost in the crash?"
Sasuke responds with a soft hum,motions Naruto closer with a slight tug on Naruto's left arm. It's been two days since they've made contact with anyone, since they were scheduled to make their check-in on Nelvana III. Considering how influential their parents are, though, he doesn't doubt that their political sway is being used to call in a few favours.
The Alliance has probably taken some of sort of initiative, maybe even released a statement, but it's more likely the Alliance would want to keep his and Naruto's disappearance under wraps. Without inflating their importance, simply because who he and Naruto are, even outside politics, they've been in the public eye for a while, covered by the media (not seldom enough), especially in his case. And for them to go missing right before they were supposed to show up at such a critical summit, it looks bad.
But if it was only by accident that Itachi even managed to land them on Barrah…
"Shouldn't you not be doing this right now?"
"Nag me later." Sasuke ignores Naruto's frown of disapproval, laying down Naruto's left hand and holding Naruto's right hand in both of his own. "You know doing this doesn't take that much out of me."
Naruto inhales, releasing a sigh as the cold from his hands is taken away at Sasuke's touch. "So you like to keep saying."
"Besides, I haven't used my magic all day."
"Yeah, yeah. I know how that goes."
Despite his seemingly outward calm, Naruto's been projecting loud enough for them both, sharing in a disquiet that hasn't abated since Itachi and Juugo left. It's not excessive, nowhere near the point where it'd affect Sasuke's empathy, but he still uses the excuse to warm Naruto's hands as a means to alleviate some of Naruto's unease.
From one magic user to another, especially between those who are close, even the simplest touch can have a calming effect. With very few people does it work the other way around for him, but his magic tends to have a much more pronounced effect around others, regardless of whether they're magic users or not.
It's not the same as his Influence, less about inadvertently inducing someone into an intense state of euphoria and more along the lines of being consciously receptive of another person's emotions. Naruto's always been immune to his Influence, anyway.
He blinks away the glint of white that begins to edge at his sight, opening his eyes to the small scratch that cuts across the length of Naruto's palm. Maybe a scrape from the ship when Naruto had been working on repairs earlier. His fingers trace over the scratch, following a thin line already beginning to pale, nearly fully healed. From Naruto's palm, his hand moves towards the rib-knit cuff of Naruto's jacket sleeve, carefully pushing back the lightweight material to lie bunched above Naruto's elbow.
He stares at Naruto's arm, slowly placing his hand over unblemished skin, where the dunemite's stinger had left a gaping wound, still unable to rid himself of the image of Naruto clutching his arm, still able to hear the terror in Naruto's agonised screams, because he'd actually felt Naruto dying. Despite Naruto's own ability to heal, the venom had spread too fast. He'd already lost too much blood, but Sasuke had kept him alive. He kept Naruto safe, used his magic to allay Naruto's pain. Even after the screaming stopped and Naruto fell unconscious, until the venom was completely gone, he continued to use his magic until he was sure Naruto would be okay.
It'd taken a lot out of him, more than he's willing to acknowledge, never mind openly admit to Naruto, just how much of his life force he'd given in order to save him, because then he'd have to acknowledge just how close he came to losing him.
There's nothing wrong with Naruto's arm anymore. Naruto already told him his arm wasn't giving him any problems, completely healed, as if that encounter with the dunemite never happened, but if he hadn't been able to reach Naruto in time, if he hadn't been able to—
"What're you doing?"
His body goes tense at the sharp tone of Naruto's voice. He glances down at Naruto's fingers wrapped tight around his wrist, eyes travelling to the back of Naruto's left hand, to his arm. Looking up to meet Naruto's eyes, his breath catches still.
Naruto doesn't seem to know what to say, either, but he tries for an assuring smile, tries too hard to brush off his own obvious concern behind the implications of what Sasuke had almost done. "If you keep doing that creepy thing with your eyes, you're going to make me tell Itachi on you. And then he'd probably make you start wearing your old gloves again."
The attempt at a joke falls flat. As Naruto releases his wrist, carefully, Sasuke lowers Naruto's arm.
With a grunt, Naruto pushes up from the ground, uncrossing his legs and making his way closer to the wall, sitting on Sasuke's right. He invites himself beneath the small mound of blankets without permission, mindful of Juugo's quilt, huddling closer, legs outstretched, shoulder to shoulder.
He doesn't shy away for Naruto's sake, is what he tells himself, because he doesn't want to believe Naruto made the move intentionally to put his right arm out of sight.
"I told you I'm okay, so stop worrying about it already. We got this. You and me, whatever happens from now on, we can handle it."
He realises that Naruto's fine. In his mind, he can rationalise that it's because of his life magic that Naruto hadn't died, yet in this one instance, held under the sway of an innate compulsion in a situation where his life magic shouldn't even apply, what he'd initially thought a onetime incident healing the bruising around Juugo's neck, it's not so much of an accident if it's twice within two days he used his life magic without meaning to.
More so than any type of elemental magic, his life magic has always demanded the least of him, has so many times nearly consumed him, left him so many times feeling helpless, yet pushed him even harder to overcome an ability to heal that didn't always come to him at will. In such a short span of time, to see years' worth of effort begin to fall apart, fraying at the seams, the control he worked so hard towards suddenly such an insignificant thing, he thought he finally grew past this.
"Since we're going to be holed up in here, anyway, you should go ahead and get some sleep." Naruto rests his palm over Sasuke's knee. "I'll wake you up when it's your turn."
His gaze wanders from Naruto's unyielding stare, to his sword tilted against the wall, blade fully retracted, hilt still specked with blood from the dunemite he'd killed. "Can't."
"Try," Naruto counters. "If you thought I looked like shit after one night here, it's still nothing compared to you looking like passing out's just going to be a matter of time. And I'm not hauling your disagreeable ass across a desert."
He pauses, brow creased in thought, fingers chasing abstract silhouettes into the side of Sasuke's leg. His features ease with a wry snort, as he pulls his hand away. "Drag you by the arm maybe, but that's as far as I'll go."
It's funny sometimes, how Naruto likes to pretend his uncanny ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat is normal. Or how firm he is in the belief that being able to sleep like the dead yet being able to wake up alert at almost any noise is part of a practical skill set everyone should have. But Naruto's able to stay awake a lot longer, too. He's been able to do a lot more things since that training mission he won't talk about.
Something else entirely he doesn't want to dwell on, so he settles instead into the unobtrusive warmth at his side. He tries to relax against Naruto, tries to bury a still rising apprehension, falls into the comfortable lull of his magic, allowing it to distract him.
He takes his time, raises his arm between them, watching as his magic gathers his hand. Pulled from the air around him, the beginnings of a tiny mass take shape above his palm, seemingly bound by streaks of shadows folded within a vivid light effacing the fire's warm glow.
It's one of the earliest tricks he learned to do with his magic. At its core, it's a pretty simple technique, part meditation exercise, part childhood diversion. It's an outlet for his magic that helped to him better his overall concentration, good for both mental acuity and magical ability, although it hadn't been his goal to do so at the time.
Far less profound, it came out of a desire to emulate the techniques he'd seen Itachi and Naruto practice, techniques he didn't have the ability to do—when he began trying to teach himself elemental magic on his own, before anyone else knew he was capable of more than just life magic.
"Itachi's right." Naruto's gaze is drawn to the small mass gradually increasing in size, mounting inside spinning winds tempered into the shape of a sphere no larger than Sasuke's palm. "You really do use your magic too freely," is his soft murmur, but he doesn't look away, almost rapt, because being able to manipulate two elements at once, even for a life user, it really isn't supposed to be possible.
Far from the first time anyone's accused him of being too flippant with his magic, it's been a point of contention with Itachi often enough, being told many times he takes his apparent ease with magic for granted, but it isn't really something he can help.
He didn't think much of it when he was younger, understands less and less as he grows older, because he doesn't know how to explain it as anything other than an intrinsic part of him. It's simply there. To him, using magic is tantamount to breathing, exists beneath his skin a ceaseless state of consciousness, an ever-present hum soothing in its regularity.
The way his magic works, it's already a difficult concept for him to grasp on his own, and that much more difficult to convey to other people, even other magic users.
Essentially, a magic user is someone who has the ability to manipulate one of the seven established transformation elements: fire, wind, lightning, earth, water, metal, and shadow. However, magic can only affect elements that already exist. It can't create them. The extent an element can be manipulated is determined by both a magic user's immediate surroundings and their magical ability, the latter limited by inherent potential and acquired mental acuity.
Regardless of any inherent talent, it takes rigorous training to achieve the level of mental acuity required to perform what's considered the truly impressive feats of magic, and only if the potential already exists. Not every earth elemental can shatter the ground beneath them. Not every lightning elemental is able to gather and sustain a high concentration of lightning in their hand. Even for Itachi, learning how to hone his ability to manipulate shadows didn't come easily.
Yet as a life user, the core of Sasuke's training has always centred on building his endurance while using magic, because his magic already comes to him without having to think about it; once he's seen a technique, it's more or less a matter of simply willing his magic to mimic what he's seen.
Unlike a conventional magic user, though, a life user's magic predominantly lies within the ability to manipulate life force, the natural energy in every living organism. While there's little scientific basis, the universal belief is that, in lieu of using magical energy, this manipulation of life energy enables a life user to impart their own life force onto another living being, in order to mend any "sequence gaps" caused by injury or disease disrupting the flow of natural energy.
Which he can say is true, in most respects, if not overly simplified. Calling them sequence gaps, as the generally accepted term, implies natural energy exists consistently within a linear vacuum, as a collective stream of energy flowing towards the same direction. Instead, within any living organism, their life force is always contracting and expanding, in constant motion, flowing in different directions. Even the smallest harm to the body can create the tiniest tears disrupting the flows of natural energy, what he visualises as provisional dead space, until the body is able to replenish its life force over time.
Depending on the severity, the longer it takes the body to heal, the less likely it will be able to replace the natural energy lost, the same energy that contributes to normal biological functions. Small tears can swell in size to become massive holes, drifting with the various flows of natural energy, sometimes breaking off, like an infection, continuously deteriorating the energy around them, generating more and more provisional dead space until the body is no longer alive.
Using life magic can stall the process, filling in whatever tears in natural energy and allowing the body to heal much more quickly, even faster than Naruto's ability to heal. Yet it can also be incredibly draining. And if he overexerts himself, giving too much of his life force is dangerous enough to kill him, almost did a few times, because being a kid with that kind of magic, subconsciously compelled by an instinctive urge to heal, it took a lot of trial and error before his parents trusted him to no longer need protection from any accidental touch.
Not that there's much of any recorded history dealing with life magic, or that he knows another life user to compare himself to, but the healing aspect is one of the few consistencies he actually found among life users; supposedly, it explains having higher levels of empathy, although correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, since none of it explains why he can even Influence people at all.
What isn't common knowledge, however, is that his life magic is much more than its healing aspect. It encompasses all forms of magic. It allows him not only the magical ability to manipulate elements already within existence, but to recreate them using his own life energy.
He realises it's a lot of power. But that's all magic really is. At the very root of it all, that's what it comes down to, one of the longstanding causes underlying the continued dissent between the Alliance and the Federation. Magic is simply another form of power. What some have and what others don't. A different form of power not everyone happens to agree with.
And while he can rationalise in his mind the immense significance in merely knowing that kind of power exists, while he understands the concern surrounding the ease in which he's able to use that power, on the other hand, that's just the way his magic is.
Naruto starts to shift beside him, reaching into the side pocket of his pants for a small, square packet already torn open near the top, seemingly nondescript, save for its shiny red foil. He empties the packet in his palm, shuddering at the sight of the white, oblong pill that falls out.
"Ugh. Can't stand having to take NPs." He shudders again, making an unpleasant face, shaking his head before popping the pill in his mouth and swallowing it dry. "Give me REMs any day."
Sasuke snorts, relaxing further against him, as comfortable as he'll probably get in a cave like this. His gaze trails back to the sphere in his hand, as the coils within begin to loosen, tighten again encircled by diffused bands fluctuating between parallel curves of shadow and light.
On its own, light magic isn't officially recognised as a transformation element. It's just as appropriate to lump it under the umbrella of shadow magic, because there isn't much difference between the two. They're inherently the same,something few people realise. One can't exist without the other, although through the years it's just become more commonplace to call it shadow magic. Mostly due to the fact it's the form of magic people seem to be the least comfortable with.
Although it's also the rarest form of magic next to life magic, as highly regarded as it is within his own family, within the magic user community at large it still has its share of negative connotations, usually with an emphasis placed on the ambiguous nature of shadow techniques.
Outside the magic user community, there's a noted history of accusations towards shadow users, more so than other magic users, dubbing them soulless, unable to be trusted—an attitude that endured even after the attempted mass genocide during the Second Great War. It's no longer part of mainstream views, not within recent centuries, but the base sentiment hasn't completely gone away.
In principle, to use shadow magic is to manipulate the appearance of light, which, depending on who's asked, isn't too dissimilar from distorting reality, because like with any kind of power, there are shadow users who've misused their magic. Unfortunately, for too many people, even given the mere impression of having to question what they perceive as reality is sufficient provocation to condemn shadow magic altogether.
He's never thought of shadow magic that way, grew up believing it to be the special magic only Itachi could do, something he wanted to be able to do, too. And during his early attempts to emulate his brother, the absence of shadow became light. Shadow magic is light magic. That's how he's always understood it to be.
The idea for the sphere itself, however, came from his early attempts to emulate Naruto.
It's an inspired copy of one of Minato's more advanced techniques, the use of wind magic to create a rotating ball of air constantly in motion. Minato also used it as the basis for an exercise he designed specifically with Naruto in mind, in order to help Naruto refine his control; while Naruto's confident in his magical ability now, it wasn't the easiest for him to cope with the sheer breadth of his power at a young age.
As early as eight, he had a regular habit of unleashing too much at once, sporadic bursts of magic laying destruction to nearly everything within a sizeable area. He definitely had the stamina to keep up with it, even if he had issues keeping it fully contained. But there were also times when he wouldn't be able to use his magic, despite the fact that wind magic applied to an element as pervasive as air.
However, its accessibility makes wind magic as volatile as fire magic and arguably the hardest form of magic to control. It takes a certain sophistication, involves the strenuous kind of discipline that, by outward impression alone, many people tend to assume someone like Naruto isn't capable of. And yet at seventeen, Naruto's already achieved a level of mastery magic users with twice his experience are nowhere near.
Although at eight, Sasuke would watch a nine year old Naruto determined to master his dad's technique, determined not to give up trying to manipulate the air inside a thick-walled balloon filled with water and roughly the size of his fist.
So he decided to try it, too. As he watched Naruto's progression, not wanting to be left behind, he'd practice on his own, spend hours trying to emulate the techniques he'd seen both Naruto and Itachi do. And then one day he'd taken Naruto to their hiding spot, proved for the first time he had elemental magic, too, proudly showed him the sphere of shadow and wind, although he made Naruto promise to keep it a secret until he was ready to tell.
It was so small then, this tiny little ball that paled in comparison to what Naruto could already do, but it was still his. It was still something he was able to call his own, because for the longest time, ironically, it didn't seem as if he would have magic.
Magic users typically present by the time they're five, no later than six, or, in Itachi's case, as early as three. Sasuke's magic hadn't begun to manifest until eight, nearly a year after his empathy developed. No one in his family expected him to be a prodigy like Itachi or Shisui, much less share Itachi's exceedingly rare shadow magic, but there was an expectation that he'd at least have an affinity for the fire magic that's run in their line for generations.
There were no whispers deeming him a disappointment. There was no silent condemnation for not having any magical ability. In fact, there were only words to placate him, assurances that any form of magic was extremely rare to have. However, being born into one of the most prominent families of magic users, being constantly surrounded by people who could use magic, more than just his brother and their parents, people like Naruto and other kids his age, he'd placed upon himself the expectation to uphold that tradition.
By the time he was seven, Sasuke could only resolve that he hadn't fulfilled it. At seven, however, it was also the year his empathy appeared and he had his first episodic attack.
As a whole, the study of magic as a true science didn't emerge until about three centuries ago, with the advent of the Suzuki scale, the first academic attempt on record to gauge how and why magic works, as well as proposing a common association between magic and what Suzuki would then term his definition of empathy among magic users, the means through which someone expresses a certain level of sensitivity to emotions; Suzuki was also one of the early advocates who believed magical ability to be heredity, although as an arbitrary genetic anomaly passed within families, as opposed being a gene that follows typical inheritance behaviour patterns.
Because no known, reliable biological indicators exist to measure a person's magical ability, or lack thereof, Suzuki invented a complex, yet surprisingly comprehensive system of methodologies to help assess a potential magic user during the early stages of childhood, based on the premise that empathy develops before magical ability and continues to develop after magic begins to manifest, albeit it at a much slower pace. Ultimately, the higher the initial empathetic ability is on the scale, the stronger the potential for magical ability.
There hasn't been much progress in the field since then, or at least nothing that's provoked as much academic discourse as Suzuki's research. With the more recent publications Sasuke's read through, magic theory is barely mentioned in passing, if that, even referred to as bedlam theory, for all the confusion that comes alongside trying to study magic within a scientific context.
However, Suzuki's proposed relationship between magic with empathy has become a widely accepted theory, going so far as to imply that magical ability and empathetic ability are mutually inclusive: All magic users have the capacity for empathy, placed between one and twelve on the Suzuki scale, although most people registered into the system place between two and five.
Among the registered magic users in his family, the chances of having strong levels of empathy tend to run on the higher side of average, usually between four and seven. Itachi surpassed even that as an E9. Naruto, being the exception he usually is, placed as an E10.
Sasuke hadn't shown any of the usual signs of a magic user, but his parents still made an appointment for an initial assessment at four. He was given another assessment at five, then again at six. By his fourth appointment, it was decided he didn't have the capacity for empathy and wouldn't develop any magical ability.
Of course, he'd later prove this wrong, but the issue seemed to lie within the way his empathy works, further thrown off by his apparent lack of magical ability at the time, because even then his empathy was abnormally high, placing well beyond the scope of the Suzuki scale; normally, empathy functions as a passive sense, but his empathy seems to take on a more active role.
All it took was a simple touch from Naruto to set it off.
Although they weren't necessarily friends, he did know Naruto by then, due to the friendship between their moms and the fact their parents ran in the same political circles. Before they lived on base, they lived near the capital in Nagi, went to the same private school, and happened to share one overlapping class, even though magic users like Naruto had a slightly different curriculum.
He doesn't recall any specific details, just remembers being in class, sitting at his desk, from behind Naruto trying to get his attention, a hand reaching out to tap him on the shoulder, and then everything just hurt.
He remembers falling out of his chair, being curled up on the floor, holding his head, screaming himself hoarse. Too many people too close. From everyone crowded around him, a cacophony of noise, all the crying and all the shouting, then the even louder voices he couldn't recognise. He didn't know whether he was dying or going insane. He didn't know the pain was being caused by the brunt of everyone else's emotions, his mind being torn every which way, overwhelmed by foreign sensations that all together still somehow felt like his own.
The only thing he knew was that being touched made it worse.
Eventually, he was admitted to the hospital, had to be carefully sedated, constantly monitored thorough periodic episodes. Even vaguely aware of his surroundings, if anyone came too close it would trigger another adverse reaction. For three days, it was an onslaught of unwanted sensation, exhausting attempts to fend off wandering hands. No one could pinpoint anything physically wrong with him. Since he'd failed to show any sign of magical ability yet, there was no reason for anyone to suspect his attacks were related to his empathetic ability.
Near the end of the third day came Itachi. All at once his brother's presence became a soothing balm, enveloped him in a comforting silence as he reached out for the first person it didn't hurt to touch. For hours at a time he spent latched on to his brother, wrapped around him, and because he didn't know how else to tell Itachi what was wrong, the only thing he could do was refuse to let his brother go.
It became a little more bearable then, having Itachi there. Other than his brother, though, he still wasn't able to bear having anyone else too close, not even his mom and dad, yet his acute attachment to Itachi led his then pediatrician to refer his parents to a specialist in childhood empathy development, Iyashi, one of the best in his profession.
The circumstances were highly unusual, but, with an interim diagnosis of emotional trauma, he would spend the next eleven weeks in the hospital, quarantined in a special ward far enough away from other patients.
Like Itachi, Iyashi became someone he deemed safe. After establishing the extent of his empathetic ability, how susceptible to emotions he truly was, Iyashi helped him learn to filter out emotions that weren't his own. Sessions with Iyashi were spent on strengthening both his emotional barriers and mental acuity, allowing him to catch up with magic users at his age, with exercises adapted to work without the magic component involved in the Suzuki method.
It took time to readjust being around people again, nearly a year for his fear of any unfamiliar touch to completely subside, wary of anyone he couldn't deem safe getting too close. The process was gradual for his parents, too, and it was startling, the simple sensation of just being able to hug his mom and dad again, but it was by complete accident Naruto became part of the initially small circle of people he thought of as safe.
The first time Naruto came to visit, he somehow managed to sneak into the ward. He'd made up his mind to skip school that day, while Sasuke was asleep, waiting impatiently in a seat too large for his body, legs dangling over the edge of the chair pushed closer to Sasuke's bed.
When he woke up, Sasuke couldn't hold back from a flinch at the sight of Naruto, quick to sit up, putting distance between them, although it didn't stop Naruto from approaching him with a timid smile, offering to let Sasuke play with the model ship he brought, and asking if Sasuke ever received the get well card he made.
Yet before Sasuke could come up with anything to say, his attention was redirected to the call of Naruto's name, a long-suffering cry that prompted Naruto to hop down from the chair and dash across the room. From over his shoulder, Naruto grinned, promising he'd come back again to visit soon to show Sasuke how to play with the ship.
The nurse who'd been searching for Naruto earlier, Mitate, one of the designated nurses allowed in the ward, was just in time to enter Sasuke's room. Naruto made a run for the open door, determined to escape Mitate's wrath, steps quickened into a sprint, before lowering himself into a slide through Mitate's legs, scrambling up off the floor, and dashing away down the hall.
Or, that's what Naruto would later say he thought was supposed to happen, if Mitate hadn't taken hold of his arm first, hoisting him off the floor, apologising profusely to Sasuke, and then preceding to lead away a wildly protesting Naruto trying to proclaim his innocence—the scene over as soon as it began, leaving Sasuke behind wide-eyed and confused, gaze wandering between the open door and the model ship Naruto had given him still in his hand.
In some ways, that first empathetic attack had been the catalyst to their friendship. It other ways, it would begin a series of events that make him feel now as if they're somehow drifting apart.
He knows Naruto's not completely over it. Driven by the same misguided sense of guilt that wouldn't allow Sasuke to return Naruto's favourite model ship, even when he was eight that adamant to make amends for something that wasn't even his fault, the way Naruto used to look at him sometimes, those passing moments of uncertainty so painfully clear in blue eyes, because Naruto's always been too much the kind of needlessly self-sacrificing guy who thinks it's his responsibility to carry the weight of Sasuke's burdens on his shoulders.
He never blamed Naruto, never saw a reason to. Naruto was just as much a victim of unfortunate coincidence. If not Naruto, it would've been someone else. He just won't allow himself to accept that.
Then again, Naruto's not the only one unwilling to accept a lot of things.
The sphere of wind and light hovers over the back of Sasuke's hand, moving from one finger to the next as it begins to grow larger and smaller once more. He turns his hand over and catches the sphere in his palm, fingers curled through it, before opening his hand again, allowing the air to release slowly, the command to dispel without a second thought, its shape gradually fading alongside the absence of light.
Lowering his arm, he raises his head, met with Naruto's discerning gaze.
"Sasuke, I…" Naruto breathes in with a heavy sigh. "I didn't plan on bringing this up just yet, but what's been going on between you and Itachi, when it gets like this, it's awkward for me, too, you know. I mean, it seems like I've known you two since forever, so it's hard being put in the middle.
"Itachi might not be my brother, but that doesn't mean we aren't close. That doesn't mean I can't care about him, what you said to Itachi yesterday, that was mean, Sasuke. It wasn't right. To throw something like that in his face, something he had no control over, it wasn't right, and you know it.
"You never should've said something like that in the first place, so whatever brought it on, I think you need to suck it up and apologise."
The small fire begins to die, the light in the cave retreating into a dim glow.
"Yeah, Itachi isn't the most open guy out there, butyou know how much he cares about you. All the crap he has to put up with in his position, you can't expect him to be perfect all the time. He messes up just like the rest of us, but everything he does is because of you. Everything, Sasuke. Even with all those outdated laws telling you what you can't do, he always tries to find a way to make things the best he can for you.
"And if you still haven't figured that out by now, well…"
Sasuke lifts his hand, palm laid open below his chin. He parts his lips and blows softly towards the fire, spurs the flames a little higher, watches the excited flickers paint alternating streaks of light against the walls, revealing intermittent glimpses of the pictographs dancing on the uneven surface, highlighting the shadows playing over the lower half of Naruto's jaw.
"It takes a lot to get to a guy like Itachi, but you hurt him bad, Sasuke. You really did." Naruto's voice turns brisk, almost dismissive with a short scoff, yet his entire demeanour remains annoyingly calm. "Actually, I'm really kind of mad at you for that." He glances at the fire, takes up again that discerning gaze this time matched with an unpleasant quirk to his lips.
Weird how it's harder not to listen to what Naruto's saying when he isn't being loud.
"You're the only person who can hurt him like that. You're the only person who will always get to him that way. The only reason he was even mad at you is because he was worried something could've happened to you and he wouldn't have been able to stop it."
He's willing to acknowledge Naruto isn't wrong. As aggravating as Itachi's attitude towards him can be at times, he knows how much his brother cares about him. Never once was he given reason to doubt the bond between them. After that initial confrontation, though, since openly challenging Itachi's authority, he's been readily avoiding the issue, still unsure where he stands.
If only for briefest moment, he'd felt it, the tiniest fracture in Itachi's composure, beneath the fearful relief a poignant disappointment too late he'd realise hadn't been directed toward him. And yet in that very same moment, his brother had become a distant presence, the Itachi before him detached from the comfortable silence he's never had around anyone else. It'd been unsettling, the sight of his own diminishing reflection staring into the darkness of his brother's eyes.
Out of all their disagreements, this time feels different from the rest, leaves him anxious for a next time that's yet to come, not for any reason he's prepared to think about.
Itachi's been stationed off world before, in situations more dangerous than this. On missions he'd disappear for weeks at a time when Sasuke was too young to comprehend why, too young to worry about anything other than each time looking forward to the day he'd be able to greet his brother home.
He's old enough to understand now, old enough to acknowledge that Naruto isn't wrong. Itachi was never as infallible as he once used to seem, and as the reality of the situation catches up to him, the source of a nameless trepidation, it's this he doesn't want to admit.
"It's not that I don't like Juugo. Don't get me wrong. He really does seem nice so far. A guy like that definitely doesn't deserve all the crap he's been through. But there's no way you could've known that. Even if your empathy—"
"It doesn't work like that," Sasuke bites out, because it's always such a convenient excuse to invalidate anything he does or doesn't do by blaming it on his empathy.
"Honestly, I'm not saying you're the only one who's done dumb shit, okay. I know I've done some pretty stupid shit, too. But it's on a totally different level in a situation like this. Letting your guard down around someone you don't even know, when you're by yourself, someone like you—"
"Someone like—"
"Someone like you, Sasuke. Someone who—"
Naruto picks at the thick material of the light blue blanket, smoothing it over his lap, legs fully covered, only the toes of his black boots peeking from underneath. "Look, I…" He draws in a short breath, letting out air in a soft huff. "I know I give you a lot of shit for being a civilian, but I'm not sorry for it. I'm not going to apologise for calling you what you are—except this isn't just about you not being trained for this sort of thing."
While it isn't just about his lack of military training, being denied the opportunity to even enlist plays a significant part in it. Unofficially, his preliminary entrance scores were more than good enough to get in; taken anonymously, they were impressive enough to attract the attention of someone like Hatake Kakashi. Officially, solely on the basis of being a life user, it meant nothing.
By law, life users aren't allowed to attend any of the military academies serving the Allied Armed Forces, regardless of sector or branch. With how few people it actually affects, it's the kind of petty law that'd be pointless to openly protest. To do so would essentially be the same as putting his own wellbeing above the continued welfare of the Alliance.
As it stands, the law's imposed as part of a bill entitling magic user rights, formed alongside other dated laws like Registration, which serves as a blanket sanction that requires all magic users to register their elemental type, alongside their current magical and empathetic ability with the Alliance, in order to be fully recognised as protected citizens; supposedly, it's for their own good, to protect the minority from the sometimes more radical majority, because while these sort of laws don't denounce magic users, or truly prevent them from participating as citizens of the Alliance, if any kind of discrimination were to take place, committed by members of the Federation or the Alliance, unregistered magic users aren't guaranteed the same natural protections as non-magic users.
Reforming magic user rights isn't even an option. Despite the rational irrationally of politics, no sane member on the Council would think to even attempt proposing that kind of monumental change, much less to a system that, for the most part, many people don't perceive as broken, largely due to the fact the bill was a major incentive in the Neet-Feld treaty that keeps the Alliance and the Federation from launching into another war.
"Maybe things might've been different," Naruto tries to placate. "Maybe it wouldn't be the same if you could've signed up for the Academy, too. But the way things are now, you being who you are, that's why I'm supposed to look out for you. I'm supposed to put you first. I have to."
Lips pursed, Sasuke turns his gaze to fire beginning to wane, turns from the soft gleam in blue eyes that won't look away. He tugs on his sleeve, absently pulling it over his arm, holding the cuff between his fingers and his palm. There's no reason to argue with Naruto over a moot point.
Hearing Naruto say it doesn't make the sentiment any less discouraging from all the other times he's heard it, the same tired platitude over and over again. At least he can be grateful his parents are well past the phase where they felt the need to keep him under proverbial lock and key, but he's spent the last five years striving to prove he's worth more than just his magic, fought to overcome his own limitations to prove that he's not weak, that he doesn't deserve to be accused of being a exploitable risk that could be used to undermine the integrity of the Alliance.
Having life magic shouldn't be such a serious issue. Yet no matter what he does, he's either treated as a political liability, or seen as someone who can't fend for himself, someone who needs to be saved from himself, but he didn't ask Naruto to protect him. He's never wanted that from him.
"...you really don't get it, do you?" Naruto watches him strangely, not quite bemused, blue eyes earnest with an expression Sasuke can't entirely place. "The things you can do with your magic, Sasuke—those aren't normal things you see every day. And it messes with people. Either they want to use you for what you have, or don't want you to have it because they don't.
"The things everyone else can't do, that makes you different. That makes you stand out. And sometimes, that makes you a threat. Next to you, I'm just Namikaze Minato's son. I mean, I don't like it, either, but that's what it is, you know. Even if it ever did get out about Kyuubi, it wouldn't take much for people to find a way to make it come back to you.
"And not just people like Orochimaru. Hell, people like him, they're easy to keep tabs on. That guy definitely isn't shy about wanting to get his hands on you. It's the people you don't know that you really have to look out for. It's the stuff coming from the people you can't see that makes it harder to keep you safe. And to hear the way some of them talk about you, like you're not even your own person, like you're just some…"
He hears enough to know some things. Even around base, he's been the subject of whatever gossip's been going around. It's not bad, nothing worse than idle speculation about his life magic. The people who have approached him did so out of curiosity. Off base, when he goes to Ise, a lot of people tend to keep their distance, whether due to rumours of grossly exaggerated repercussions, or simply not understanding what they haven't been exposed to. Personally, he doesn't think too many people are bothered to care, although intent doesn't matter all that much when it seems as if his entire existence is reduced to his magical ability.
It's nothing new, though. He's had enough time to get used to it, enough to learn it's a waste of time to stay upset over something he can't do anything about.
They're just words, he remembers trying to assure Itachi, remembers trying to replace the increasingly more common resignation on his brother's face with the gentle expression that once upon a time didn't seem so far from memory, but the weary smile he received instead, that didn't suit his brother, either.
No, Sasuke. Even the simplest of words can substantiate the most single-minded ambition. It's within these simple words that our perceptions of truth are laid bare to a myriad of possibilities.
"…I can't change what people think about me, Naruto. I can't control what people say."
"I know you can't." Naruto bows his head, with a soft hum that belies the stiff set to his shoulders, restraining an agitation that turns rigid the corner of his mouth.
There are things Naruto isn't allowed to tell him, things he understands Naruto is obligated not to say, but for every omission Naruto makes, he still wonders sometimes, how much of what Naruto keeps to himself is because he's willingly chosen not to let him know.
"But that doesn't make it okay."
