A/N:

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters.

Warning: Yaoi (malexmale), crude language, shounen-ai/BL (Boy Love),

Pairing: Obito Uchiha & Naruto Uzumaki, slight Kakashi Hatake & Naruto Uzumaki

Summary: Obito has spent all of his waking hours to go back to a time in which he could be happy. But life has a funny way of dealing him a losing hand. Or Naruto is just an anomaly in which probabilities can't calculate the extent of his unpredictability.

Paradox

Part I/X

Reconciliation

"Do you need help with that, Rin?"

"O-Oh, well, if it's not too much trouble…"

"Not at all-"

"Rin-chan~, your lips are so sooooft…."

The bear-like snore that followed the sleep-induced statement had Rin's temple visibly throbbing. Naruto flinched as she roughly shoved her sleeping bag into his arms with a mumbled "hold this" and stalked her way toward the lump a few feet away from them.

She pulled back her fist and Naruto winced as a crack resonated throughout the forest.

"ITAAIII!"

Behind Naruto, Minato sighed and shook his head, resuming his weapons check as if nothing had happened. Kakashi merely watched all of them with a seemingly permanent impassiveness.

However, every so often Naruto would feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention when he wasn't facing him. Each time he looked back Kakashi was busy staring off somewhere else but he wasn't fooled. Kakashi was keeping a close eye on him and had been since the very start of the mission.

Damn, even young Kakashi is a creep, Naruto thought with a shudder.

"What was that for, Rin-chan?" Obito whined pitifully whilst rubbing his throbbing head. Kami-sama, that girl had one killer sucker-punch. That was one of the qualities he found hard to think was lovely about her in any way since they were always directed at him for one reason or another.

Rin simply glared down at him with a scowl firmly etched on her pretty features. Her eyes were ablaze with fury but softened within seconds as she watched her adorably disheveled teammate try and disentangle himself from within the confines of his sleeping bag but to no avail. She ripped her gaze off of him before she could coo over his childlike behavior and went back to Naruto, who had already set about the task of trying to stick her sleeping bag into her backpack but was also failing miserably.

She froze mid-step though, looking at Naruto sitting on the ground and fumbling with her supplies and then turning back to Obito who sat cross-legged on the ground, groggily attempting to do the same thing with his own belongings.

It was weird how much they looked physically similar and acted the same childish way. Although, Obito was obviously more immature. However, despite the obvious similarities between the two boys, they acted like they hated each other's guts. Rin furrowed her eyebrows together in thought, maybe if they'd just talk things out and got to know one another then perhaps-

Her musings were cut short when her name was called out in a sort-of babyish whine. Rin blinked at the sight she was met with and promptly snorted. There, kneeling resignedly on the ground was Naruto, tangled within her sleeping bag looking as if his puppy had just gotten kicked, and to the right of her, Obito was getting strangled by his own sleeping bag.

Honestly, she didn't know whom to go to first. On one hand, Naruto looked so painstakingly cute with that pout of his, but on the other hand, Obito was going to suffocate to death if she didn't do something soon…

Sighing in relief when she noticed Kakashi pushing himself off the tree he'd been leaning on to help Naruto with her sleeping bag she slowly made her way over to her rowdy teammate. Giving the fabric a harsh tug she successfully managed to detangle Obito, the latter letting out a squawk as his body landed unceremoniously on the ground. Rin only sighed exasperatedly.

"Idiot…" she grumbled, turning her gaze to stare longingly at the two boys neatly folding her sleeping bag. What she would give to be in Naruto's place right now…

Glaring angrily down at Obito as if it were his fault her crush wasn't with her brushing hands in the midst of folding, she stomped over to her sensei but not without giving Obito a sharp kick to the leg.

"Ouchiiee…" Obito groaned, not having the resolve to show any malice toward his teammate even though he knew he hadn't deserved that one.

"Kakashi, grab that end over there."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Grab it."

"No."

"For the love of- just grab it will ya?"

"You grab it."

"Don't you think I would have if I could?"

Minato and Rin watched with amused and disbelieving eyes as Kakashi actually participated in bickering with Naruto. For a moment there Rin believed they had been put under a genjutsu of some sort, because there was absolutely no way that the Hatake Kakashi was speaking more than two words at a time. And least of all to a person he hadn't even properly known two days ago!

Naruto clenched his teeth together in frustration, angrily curling his fingers into the fabric as he stood in front of Kakashi, who was gazing at him expectantly. Jeez, what was up with the testosterone levels in his two male teammates? It was like they tried to size him up in everything he did!

Reluctantly, and with muttered curses under his breath, Naruto grabbed the stray flap with much difficulty. It kept going further away from him every time he moved, so much so that he had unknowingly pressed his body flush against Kakashi's own. He hadn't noticed though, merely grinning triumphantly when the annoying flap finally found refuge on Kakashi's hip, in which he chose that opportune moment to snatch it with his occupied hand.

There was a gasp to his left and he snapped his head toward the general direction it came from. He looked around in confusion as he caught sight of Rin and Obito openly gaping at him. Minato, on the other hand, looked positively gleeful what with his unusually wide grin threatening to split his face in half.

"What the-"

He didn't have time to finish his inquiry when he felt something brush up in between his thighs. Before he could possibly screech like a little girl again, the unknown object had successfully nudged him away from Kakashi's personal space, and he finally took notice to the lack of warmth that had once been pressed up against him.

Naruto turned a bright shade of crimson.

Oh no, he groaned internally, not again! Why does this keep happening to me!

"Ah, Kakashi, I'm so-"

The other boy didn't let him finish though, choosing to stuff his ends of the sleeping bag into Naruto's hands.

"Hurry up so we can move on already." He grumbled sourly, stalking away from his group in favor of gathering his gear.

Minato smirked as Kakashi shot him a menacing glare when he failed to stifle his chuckle. He couldn't help it! Kakashi looked so adorable trying to hide that blush of his! Maybe Naruto really would be a good influence on the group…

As always, Kushina had been right about her outlandish predictions of the future. With a roll of his eyes, Minato stood up, watching amusedly as Naruto frantically stuffed Rin's sleeping bag into her pack, face still beet red.

"If we leave now we can arrive in the Land of Noodles by nightfall. Don't forget to fill up your canteens before we leave, alright?" As expected, Rin was the only one to nod enthusiastically, promptly setting about the task while dragging Naruto with her.

Minato could only shake his head as both Kakashi and Obito watched them leave with almost forlorn eyes, albeit one more discreet about it than the other.

It was nearing the afternoon when all of the team was feeling the effects of Obito and Naruto's tension. It had been Minato's bright idea for the two of them to bring around the back of their formation, leaving the boys a few paces away from the rest of their team members.

Rin kept sneaking worried glances at her two teammates now and again. She was afraid that one of them would end up strangling the other if neither of them chose to clear the air soon. The pregnant silence was suffocating her and she could tell it was affecting Kakashi as well from how rigid his posture was. Up ahead, Minato seemed unperturbed by the ordeal, his eyes staring straight forward.

Raking a hand through his spiky black hair Obito let out an irritated sigh. He wasn't one for silence and he could tell that Naruto wasn't either with the way he kept looking around and fidgeting with the straps of his backpack. Yet neither of them spoke, one out of precaution and the other out of stubbornness.

He sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day.

"Hey, uh, Naruto?"

He'd expected for the other to ignore him, but to his surprise, blue eyes flickered their curious gaze onto him. Obito flushed, the intensity of Naruto's gaze on him too much too soon and it was something he wasn't used to receiving. It all of a sudden made him feel nervous.

His throat felt parched and he swallowed thickly, averting his gaze to the ground and then back up at Naruto, who was pinning him with an expectant look.

"About last night…" Obito trailed off, shame clearly written all over his face. Naruto remained silent and for that he was grateful.

"I might have come off on the wrong foot..." he supplied with a nervous chuckle. He wasn't used to admitting his wrongdoings outright but there was so much time to reflect that it was near impossible to see how much of a bastard he'd presented himself as. Naruto was still looking at him with such a bland expression that it was doing a good job of unnerving him.

"So um," he continued, his slight smile a bit strained and his words tight, "I hope we can start over, yeah?" He laughed a bit but it didn't last long when he finally noticed that Naruto had stopped walking altogether and was now standing stalk-still in the middle of the road, eyes looking straight at the unmoving earth below his feet.

Raising an inquisitive eyebrow Obito walked the few steps needed to close the distance between them.

"Naruto?" he questioned.

"Do you feel that?" the other boy said, eyes narrowed at the trees in the distance.

"Feel what?"

Obito was thoroughly confused by now. He didn't feel whatever Naruto was talking about and by the way, the other boy was holding his stomach he'd bet it was just gas. Although, the look on Naruto's face had him thinking otherwise, and just as he was about to ask what exactly it was the boy was feeling, there was a rustle of leaves and then a blinding white pain shot up his right arm.

"Obito!" Naruto shouted, eyes wide as speckles of his teammate's blood landed on his face. He had tried to wait for Kakashi-sensei's signal of what to do but once he remembered that he was on foreign land in an era he was not familiar with, his fight or flight instincts kicked in and adrenaline coursed through his body as he darted forward, one arm wrapping around Obito's uninjured hand and dragging the shock frozen boy with him into the forest, not even bothering to check for the rest of his team.

There were footsteps echoing through the forest as their enemy jumped through the treetops and Naruto faltered for a moment but that was all it took. Senbon needles rained down on them and it was all too familiar.

Flashes of blood and ice crystal mirrors. A strong, young body falling to the ground and then liquid fire coursing through his veins had his breathing becoming heavier and quivering with unrestrained panic.

"Sasuke!" he screamed, eyes wide with fright because he would not let Sasuke get hurt again, not on his count. This time it was not going to be his fault.

He pushed the other boy with all his might and successfully got him out of danger but the same could not be said on his behalf.

The minute Naruto jumped backwards he felt the familiar sting of needles embedding themselves into the meat of his thighs, arms, and shoulders. Groaning in discomfort as his back was slammed into a nearby tree he didn't allow the miniscule attack to deter him. He pushed his body against the wood and used the momentum to search around for his teammate.

From his peripheral vision, he noticed a sudden movement and, with instinct overriding his senses, he whipped out the hidden kunai knife from his sleeve and charged.

"Naruto!" a familiar voice hissed and it took all Naruto had not to sink his weapon into Obito's head. They stood in front of each other, breathing ragged and eyes wide. Naruto blinked, slowly bringing down his kunai when he noticed that the person he had been ready to attack wasn't the enemy...

Obito frowned at the glossy, far-away look the boy was giving him but didn't dwell on the matter, instead choosing to grab Naruto's hand to lead him further into the forest. He knew the drill. If any of them were to be separated from the group then it was up to them to escape their enemies either by losing them or engaging them in battle to survive. Right now it seemed as though they had no other choice than to spill blood.

The rustling of leaves and wisps of fractured air alerted him once more of their surroundings and he sped up their pace even more. Naruto still hadn't snapped out of whatever phase he was in so Obito gripped his hand with his uninjured one tighter and proceeded into the forest, looking frantically for a place to hide because from the sound of it there wasn't going to be just another single enemy attacking them that he could easily defeat like the previous one.

They were running out of time, that much was for sure, and just as Obito was about ready to take his fighting stance and take on their enemies head-on with Naruto behind him, a warm hand wrapped around his wrist and tugged him down. Both boys scrambled into the small crevice at the base of a tree, their bodies barely fitting but they wiggled and squirmed until they were in, their breathing heavy and loud once situated.

It was a tight-knit space for two grown teens but they said nothing when thighs touched thighs and faces became dangerously close to one another, their puffs of breath intermingling. They did not squirm in discomfort as pale, bare skin slickened with sweat rubbed against tanned flesh, and they certainly did not shout when lips brushed against cheeks.

The adrenaline coursing through Obito had him breathing heavily and muscles quivering with anxiousness. Naruto was glaring fiercely at him to be quiet but he just couldn't. He had been so ready to fight and now, they had to wait in the constricting hollowness of a tree. The heat was stifling and their sweat mixed together, wounds seeping blood and dripping onto the earth.

Shouts of orders were heard from the outside and Naruto placed a calm hand at the base of Obito's neck, bringing the other's head down with his, their foreheads touching, and placed his other bloodied hand on the Obito's mouth.

"Relax." He whispered softly, his own body taut and strained. There was no struggle between the two, their previous conversation before any of this escaping them because now nothing else mattered other than survival, and for that to happen they had depended on each other with their lives.

"Did you find them?" a voice from the outside barked, sounding a couple of feet away from where the two boys were located.

Obito's fist clenched at his sides and Naruto held onto the other boy tighter, eyes narrowed at him. If they even so much as breathed the wrong way it could mean the life of either two, or both, and he would not allow that despite how much Obito rubbed him the wrong way.

"Negative." Another replied and there was muttered cursing.

Both their faces were flushed over by now, sweat trickling down their foreheads and getting in their eyes. The heat in between them was radiating in waves. It was hot outside and coupled with the fact that their bodies were so heated and folded awkwardly against each other inside of a tree it felt as if they were being roasted inside an oven.

"Find them. Now."

And then there was tense silence.

Neither one of them spoke for precautionary reasons, not even attempting to breathe. Up until then, they had held their breaths as long as they could and they could feel their lungs screaming for oxygen.

Both boys stared at one another. Naruto, losing himself in the dark pools of Obito's eyes that reminded him so much of Sasuke it hurt.

Obito spent his time analyzing every feature of the other boy's face. Naruto's irises were eerily bright despite the darkness inside their hideout and he could identify speckles of gold and red within them, showing exactly how afraid and yet so determined he was to get through this.

After another moment or two had passed Naruto pulled away. Obito let out a shaky sigh of relief and let his head fall against the tree bark with a thud. They both relaxed their tense muscles and slumped against the walls of the tree, their bodies slumping to the ground in a pile of limbs.

"Ouch!" Naruto winced when Obito's stray foot accidentally bumped his crotch and the boy shot him an apologetic look, bending and spreading his legs just slightly to accommodate the other boy. His attempts were futile though because he was the bigger one of the two of them and only succeeded in making Naruto curl in on himself like a frightened animal that just happened to be pulling out senbon needles from out of his body.

Thinking momentarily on what a better solution could be, Obito grew nervous and swallowed, glancing shyly at his teammate while patting the empty ground next to him. There was a stilled pause and then some shuffling before a body was brushing against his side, a leg bumping then laying flush against his own.

The little space they had was cramped for just the two of them but they still managed and neither one complained about the lack of personal space. After everything, it was the least of their problems.

They sat in mutual silence until Naruto finally spoke up.

"How's your hand?" he croaked, his throat parched from the heat that was suffocating them both and from how long they had ran. The slight breeze reaching their heated skin from the opening felt pleasant for both of them. They couldn't afford to head out yet, not with enemies so close to the vicinity.

Obito brought his hand up and looked at the injury he'd sustained at the very beginning of everything. The kunai had only grazed the top of his hand thankfully, but it had managed to slash through the layers of tissue. The white of his bone was visible, but only barely.

"Holy shit man, does it hurt?!" Obito raised an inquisitive eyebrow as he watched Naruto practically shriek like a little girl.

Obito shrugged simply. He'd lost feeling of half his arm a while back but his hand was beginning to throb painfully as he slowly came down from his adrenaline high. The bleeding still hadn't stopped and the blood dripped onto Naruto's clothing, seeping into the already blood-soaked fabric of his leg.

"Here, let me wrap it up."

There was some shuffling followed by a couple of grunts from Obito. It was difficult to move in such tight quarters but that didn't stop Naruto from digging into his backpack and taking out a roll of white bandages and a small container filled with what Obito could only assume was salve.

"I don't think that's gonna make it stop." He said slowly, watching how the other boy paid him no heed when he set the supplies on the ground and continued to rustle around in his bag.

"Aha!" Naruto exclaimed enthusiastically when he finally managed to find the small kit he'd been looking for. He clicked it open and pulled out a thin needle and Obito suddenly became agitated.

"Gimme your hand."

Obito shot the smiling boy an unsure look as he cradled his hand protectively against his chest.

"I'm not sure if I want to..." he confessed, glancing between Naruto and the shiny needle with a single thread already attached to it. The other boy rolled his eyes exasperatedly and gestured with his other hand expectantly.

"I've done this plenty of times before, just trust me here. If we don't close it soon then you'll leave tracks on our way back. Once we find the rest of the team Rin can close it up properly."

Still a bit hesitant, Obito reluctantly gave up his hand to the other boy and shut his eyes tightly as Naruto settled his other hand on his wrist to begin stitching the wound closed.

It didn't hurt any when the sharp end of the needle punctured through his skin, mostly because the nerves were already so tattered that he just couldn't feel it anymore. So, he peeked open his eyes and watched in rapt interest as Naruto knitted his eyebrows together and stuck out his pink tongue in concentration.

They were so close to one another now that Obito could feel the air move between them. Oddly enough, the closeness felt nice after the life or death situation they'd been in. He didn't feel so irritated toward the boy who had gone out of his way to save him and now, to patch him up.

"Hey..." Obito spoke softly and Naruto stilled in his work to look up at him questioningly. He smiled warmly at him and Naruto felt his cheeks heat up slightly. Obito looked so much like Sasuke yet acted so differently from him that it unsettled him to no end.

"Friends?" Obito offered and Naruto's lips twitched momentarily before nodding and resuming his task.

"Friends."

Beta'd by: DireDiamonds

A/N: I know most of you guys are confused now because of all the question-filled reviews I'm getting but don't worry, dudes. All will be revealed soon enough, my dearies. Patience is virtue and all your questions will be answered in due time. Hope you enjoyed this though, so much so that you leave some kind reviews for me to giggle at.