As soon as they arrived in the apartment, Sasuke once again found himself abandoned. He didn't mind this time. In fact, he was relieved that Naruto felt it safe to leave him here on his own after what had happened the last time he let him out of his sight. Naruto didn't even warn him to stay put, merely promising to be back as soon as he finished 'having it out' with his father. Once he was gone, Sasuke once again raided his closet. He should have had Naruto let him into the bedroom before he left. As disorganized as Naruto clearly was, he knew better than to store oil in with the rest of the jumbled equipment. Sasuke took all of the cleaning tools he could find and set himself up at the low table in the livingroom. He took his time wiping down the weapons he had used, setting the dullest ones aside to be sharpened later. Then he took stock of his newly acquired pieces.
Would they consider that theft here? He hadn't intentionally set out to collect the weapons he had found on the training ground. It just seemed a waste to leave them where they lay when he had been gathering his own, anyway. Kakashi certainly hadn't seemed to notice or care. There was no reason he should. Although Sasuke had only taken the least weather-worn pieces, even those had thin layers of rust from months if not years of neglect. Besides, the man had left three kunai of his own in that clearing. Unless he was intending to return later and retrieve them, which Sasuke doubted, he was just as careless as whoever else had been using the area. On second thought, that probably hadn't been carelessness. He still suspected Kakashi had meant him to do something with those weapons. Why else would he have discarded them? Perhaps that barb about his lack of equipment hadn't been meant to goad him, but to remark on the fact that he had walked away with more weapons than he had arrived with. In that case, the kunai he left behind might have been an attempt to arm him without openly doing so. Or Sasuke was simply overthinking the entire issue. He had a tendency to judge others by his own standards, which didn't seem to work with these...Konoha people. It didn't matter what Kakashi's intention had been, anyway. He hadn't touched the kunai he left behind. They could remain where they had fallen indefinitely for all he cared.
He rubbed away the worst of the rust and polished the metal as well as he could without oil. One of the shuriken still had chakra wire wrapped around it. He picked that off carefully, wondering whether it had been done by the user or his opponent. The wire was strung along all four points of the star, as if it had been caught in a web. But perhaps that had been a clumsy attempt to intensify whatever chakra had been coating the weapon. He would have to try that himself. He didn't have the dexterity to capture a weapon with chakra wire midflight yet, but if he were going to learn a shuriken would certainly be his first choice. The problem would be catching it, directing the chakra, redirecting the weapon's trajectory, and then snapping the wire short enough so it didn't get hung up on anything, all within a few seconds. Even if he could get the moves down fast enough, it would take a lot of practice to do it instinctively. The more deliberate a move, the easier it was to see through.
He had moved on to sharpening by the time Naruto trudged into the apartment. He flicked a sideways glance at him, took in his downtrodden appearance, and turned his attention back to his own work. Naruto had left in a blaze of determination and indignation. He wondered how quickly the Hokage had doused that, and how he had managed it. His own father would have done it with a simple look, a cold one that dismissed his entire existence. It was difficult to imagine anyone who looked so much like Naruto being able to do that.
Naruto sank down on the couch across from him, not looking any higher than the hands lying limp in his lap. "He guilt-tripped me..."
"He made you feel guilty?" Sasuke asked, meeting his cloudy gaze. "For attacking that man?"
"For not feeling guilty that I attacked him," Naruto huffed. "I don't feel bad about that, but I know I should so I feel bad that I don't. Normally I would feel bad about endangering a comrade for my own personal reasons, but in this case I don't. I just can't. And now I feel awful about that..." His confusion and dissatisfaction was readily apparent.
"I understand," Sasuke offered. He had suffered a similar confliction where Itachi was concerned. Even his loyalty to the clan was never as strong as he knew it should be, and desperately wanting it to be didn't make it so. Naruto might want to adhere to the village's morals, his father's morals, but this was a case where he didn't. All he could do was act as if he did, and regret the fact that he didn't. Sasuke understood that all too well. He set aside the shuriken and started on one of Naruto's kunai. "I take it that his plan worked, then? Will you be less likely to overreact in the future?"
Naruto let out a sharp breath, more of an exasperated huff than a laugh. "I wish. I feel the same way about what he did as he feels about what I did. Totally uncalled for and excessive. He's trying to give me a taste of my own medicine, but unless I can feel bad about what I did, it's not going to help. I'm going to try talking to that guy's family tomorrow. He has a civilian girlfriend, too. Maybe they can make me feel bad about it, or at least feel sorry for them. He's not defending himself, but he's not apologizing for it either. If he won't apologize to you, I sure as hell won't apologize to him." He was quiet for a long while, and then admitted, "I'll probably apologize to his girlfriend, though. She's the one who'll be stuck dealing with him while he's limited to C rank missions. That's the only punishment my dad is giving him for what he did. Can you believe that? Talk about setting a bad example for the rest of the village..."
Sasuke couldn't help feeling disturbed by that. He set the kunai down with a sharp click. "Would he have gotten the same punishment if you hadn't attacked him?" Considering what Naruto had done, the man had probably been punished enough already. There was no point giving him an extended punishment if he were already going to be bearing the scars of this one for the rest of his life. On the other hand, if demoting him to C rank missions was the worst he would have gotten for attacking a prisoner, then that didn't say much for discipline in this village. The man had blatantly ignored his orders and endangered his mission. A shinobi like that was all but useless.
"He probably would have gotten off even more lightly," Naruto muttered. "I'm sure he would have apologized if I hadn't done anything, and he would have spent an hour or two with Ibiki to make sure he wasn't at risk of doing anything like that again. He might have ended up on C rank missions for a while, but only if Ibiki couldn't figure out why he did it. Now he's just clammed up altogether. Since I interfered, it's being handled like a personal dispute. There's no excuse for what I did, so he doesn't have to excuse what he did. That would be the end of it, except the fact that he ignored the mission orders means he can't be trusted on anything above C rank until he proves himself. I have no idea how or even if he'll manage that. He's going to walk away from this as the victim. If he decides to stop doing missions entirely, it'll be all my fault. And I don't care. That's the worst of it. Instead of feeling bad about that, I'm hoping he does quit. So much for valuing every member of the village equally..."
The politics of the situation were much more complicated than he had realized. Sasuke dropped his eyes and went back to sharpening the kunai. He didn't have anything to offer Naruto. Had this been a clan issue, the man would have been expelled or sent on a suicide mission. The idea of an apology making any difference in how the matter was dealt with was simply ludicrous. He was glad to know someone like Ibiki would have been involved, though. Whether the man claimed or even showed remorse, it didn't matter. What mattered was his mental state, whether or not he was prone to such outbursts, and whether the situation had been an exception unlikely to be repeated, or a sign of some underlying issue that would be reflected in everything the man did as shinobi. Was Ibiki the ultimate authority in determining those things? If so, he would have seen the problem long before the man became a jounin. His lack of control had been obvious to Sasuke at first sight. How did they screen their shinobi, then? How long could someone like that remain in the ranks before being weeded out? Perhaps that was why they had enough active shinobi not to need Naruto's skills. Their standards were so low that even someone clearly unstable could be promoted.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke."
His eyes snapped up. "For what?"
"For this whole mess. You're the victim here. You came to Konoha in peace and one of our people attacked you before you even got here. If anyone should be getting sympathy out of this, it's you. It's my fault for blowing up and twisting everything around."
"But you still don't feel guilty for what you did," Sasuke pointed out calmly. "Don't force yourself to feel guilty on my behalf. I don't need anyone's sympathy, and I certainly don't want to be viewed as a victim. The only problem I have with this is that you're keeping that man as an active shinobi. The next time he snaps it may be against someone in a position to retaliate against the entire village." He lifted the kunai high enough to catch Naruto's eye. "It only takes one wet tool to rust the entire pack."
Naruto grinned and slid off the couch to sit on the floor across from him. "That sounds like something Iruka-sensei would say. He was my pregenin teacher." He took the kunai and one of the files, and began sharpening it. "Don't worry," he said, when Sasuke resumed his work with another of the kunai. "Unless the guy agrees to talk to Ibiki, they'll be keeping an eye on him. If there's even a small chance he did it because he has a grudge against Uchiha in general, then he won't be allowed anywhere near you. My dad believes strongly in giving people second chances, but he's not careless about it."
There was no point debating that. He didn't bother to ask why the man might have a grudge against his clan, either. Whether that was related to Itachi's recent actions, or the reason the clan had left in the first place, he knew Naruto wouldn't talk about it. "Is this incident closed now? Or will you be receiving official discipline for your part in it?"
"It's closed," Naruto admitted, not sounding too happy about that. "As for discipline, I can look forward to that as soon as I go back outside. Not many people will talk about what I did in the hospital, but they're already gossiping about my little...explosion earlier. It could be worse," he said quickly, trying shrug it off. "I was in the T&I building when my chakra got out of control, so a lot of it was muffled. And I didn't cause any damage at all. I wanted to tear through some of the seals to make sure you weren't being contained somewhere, but I didn't do it. If I'm lucky, most people will just assume I was training. Kakashi-sensei was seen going into that building, after all. It might even come in handy that I went straight from there to the forest of death. Anyone who could feel my chakra from that far away would know where it was coming from. So aside from some ribbing from shinobi and curious prodding from the civilians, I'll get off pretty lightly. My friends will be worried, but I can tell them the truth."
He was reminded of the way Kakashi hadn't so much as twitched at the sudden explosion of Naruto's chakra. What sort of training did the two of them do together for the man to be that used to the feel of it? He would have to overcome his own uneasiness toward it. He certainly didn't want to be the only one in this village flinching any time Naruto tapped into his demon's chakra. He wondered again what made Naruto so different from Gaara. He would have to find someone else to ask about that. Just mentioning that Gaara had a demon had been enough to put Naruto on the defensive.
He set down the kunai he had been working on, and noted that Naruto was brushing off the last one. He caught his eye. "Let me into the bedroom. I need oil for these."
Naruto immediately jumped up, apologizing and being so frantic that it was obvious he expected Sasuke to be angry with him. Sasuke dismissed the entire spiel, though he didn't try very hard to convince Naruto that he honestly wasn't upset. This morning had already taught him that once Naruto made up his mind about something he might as well keep his mouth shut and let him believe what he liked. Besides, if Naruto was that worried about him being angry, then he would be more likely to give him whatever he wanted in hopes of soothing that imagined resentment. Sasuke waited until they had settled at the table once more, Naruto still squirming worriedly. He handed him one of the rags, watched him polish the kunai as if his entire future as a shinobi depended upon it, and pushed.
"Tell me about the forest of death," Sasuke prompted. "What happened to you there?"
Naruto tensed up, everything in his body language screaming discomfort and reluctance. But he didn't hesitate long before muttering, "My chunin exam." He finished polishing the kunai in front of him, clearly hoping that would be the end of that discussion. Sasuke disappointed him by handing him another weapon as soon as he was done, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Naruto's head dropped, and a little resentment crept into his muttering tone. "It was the second test, the survival test. No interference, no rules, just all the candidates dumped in that forest for five days. We were all on three man teams, each team given one of two scrolls and expected to steal the other scroll before the time limit. It should have been easy. I had two medics on my team, one of them trained by Tsunade herself. She's an insanely skilled medic," he boasted, latching onto that topic quickly and catching Sasuke's eye. "She's one of the legendary Sannin, you know."
"I don't know," Sasuke admitted. "Is sannin a level, like Jounin or Kage?"
"You don't know? I thought everyone knew!" For a moment, Naruto's tone bordered on condescending, but he reigned it in quickly. He was still eager to get back in Sasuke's good graces, stubbornly unwilling to accept that he had never fallen out of them to begin with. "Maybe it's because you never had anything to do with Konoha. That's understandable. But the Sannin were legendary. They started as a three man genin team, taught by the third Hokage. Tsunade was one of them, and Jiraiya - he was my dad's genin teacher. He's the one we get our toad summoning from. Wait till you see me summon Gamabunta. He's huge, and he has a major attitude problem. Oh! He's also the reason I call Jiraiya ero-sennin, because he's a pervy old toad sage, you know? No, you wouldn't know yet, but take my word for it, he totally is. He peeps in the women's baths, all the time! I mean, sure I did some of that back when I was learning my sexy jutsu, but this guy does it as a matter of course. He calls it research for those books of his. Kakashi-sensei reads those, by the way. If you ever want a quick way to get back at him, just wait till a new book comes out and spoil the ending. He hates that!"
Sasuke redirected Naruto's enthusiasm back toward things he was actually interested in knowing. "Sannin means three. Who was the other one?" That did it. He predicted Naruto's answer just from the face he made.
"Orochimaru," Naruto sighed. "I guess two out of three isn't bad, though, right? He left Konoha a long time ago. No one really knows why, though my dad thinks the Third Hokage might have known the reason. If he did, he took it with him when he died. Orochimaru is one of the strongest people our village trained, and now he's one of our worst enemies."
"And your third team member during the exam was working for him?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow when Naruto glowered at him. Had he really thought he wouldn't bring the discussion back to the forest? He fully intended to go back there, and it would be much easier if he knew the reason Naruto was so dead set against the place. "You said your third member turned out to be an assassin for Sound."
"Yeah," Naruto muttered, once more sounding gloomy and resentful. "How is that for irony? Tsunade trained Sakura, Jiraiya trained me, and Orochimaru trained Kabuto. We couldn't have known that, but in retrospect it's almost too obvious. He was training to be a medic nin. We picked him for the team because Sakura had worked with him at the hospital, and he had taken the exam a lot of times already but had never been on a team strong enough to pass." He snorted in contempt. "That's what he said, anyway. He was probably just taking the test to get information on the candidates, information he could pass on to Orochimaru. There's no telling how long he was spying for him."
"When did this exam take place?" Sasuke demanded sharply. He had met someone by that name. He had even taken a few orders from him, since the man had been acting as a Sound shinobi at the time. Had Sound been using the clan against Konoha without their knowledge? Or had they known all too well? He had answered Ibiki's questions freely because he had assumed none of his missions except the last one had directly concerned Konoha. That was a very foolish assumption, he realized.
"It was just a few months before we met," Naruto said. "I told you, I rushed right into Anbu as soon as I could after that mess. If they were willing to reveal a spy they'd had in the village for years, just to take a shot at me, then there was no point going through the usual public exams."
If it were the same man, then Sasuke had definitely taken his first order from him while he was still masquerading as a Konoha shinobi. And he had seen him, alive and well, immediately after that last mission. That meant they hadn't been able to capture him after he failed his assassination attempt on Naruto. Would his dealings with him be held against the clan? Just because he hadn't known, didn't mean his father hadn't.
"That wasn't the worst part of it, though," Naruto admitted quietly. "I didn't know Kabuto very well, so the betrayal didn't hit me that hard."
He was lying through his teeth. Sasuke could hear it in his voice. Naruto might not have known the man well, but he had considered him a teammate at least for the duration of the exam. The betrayal had struck hard and deep. But if Naruto didn't want to admit that, Sasuke wouldn't pry. "What was the worst part?"
"Gaara." Naruto sighed and set down the kunai and rag so he could fold his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the couch, his gaze shifting somewhere over Sasuke's head. "It wasn't his fault. We were at peace with Sand during the exam, so he didn't have anything to do with the attack."
Sasuke seriously wondered about that. His jounin instructor had claimed the same thing, that Sand and Konoha had been allies for the last five years. But he had been taking orders from Sound during that last year, orders Sand never had an issue with. He would sooner believe that Sand had a hand in whatever Sound had intended against Konoha, and had only pulled back and denied it when their plans fell through. He wondered if Naruto knew that, and if he were merely absolving Gaara out of respect for the current alliance and whatever personal loyalty he held for the boy.
"Sound wasn't allowed to participate in the exam," Naruto explained. "They made an overture, but we knew better than to trust them. When Kabuto made his move, Orochimaru was already in the forest waiting. We still don't know whether he snuck in beforehand or disguised himself as one of the genin candidates. Too many of them were unaccounted for afterward, especially among the Rain group."
Was that why Ibiki had been so interested in the communications he had taken from that village? "Did Orochimaru attack you directly? A Kage interfering in a public exam?"
"He's not a recognized Kage," Naruto said sharply. "Don't ever believe that. Mist might consider him one, but the five nations don't and never will."
"Understood."
Naruto winced at his blank tone. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I just really hate him. Refusing to acknowledge him as an official Kage is the worst anyone can really do to him, strike at his pride and limit his sway in official politics. I don't know anything about how he runs his village, or whether Sound is really all that different from any other hidden village. I just hate what he is, what he does. And I hate the fact that he was in our village without us even knowing about it."
Sasuke could completely understand that. He couldn't fathom how they had let a Kage level ninja slip in, especially if he had been disguised as a genin. Then again, he knew nothing about the sort of jutsus used by Kage level shinobi, so he was no one to judge. "Did he attack you directly?" he asked again. It was as close as he could come to asking just how strong Naruto really was. If he had survived an attack by a Kage, even an officially unrecognized one, then it was no wonder he was preparing to be one himself.
"Sort of," Naruto winced. "He set the forest on me. There are giant snakes in there." He nodded quickly, in case Sasuke doubted him. "Giant ones! I'm talking summoning sized giants." His voice abruptly dropped to a mumble, "One of them ate me."
A snort broke out of Sasuke's nose, and he slapped a hand over his mouth. So much for the Kage level battle he had been imagining. He couldn't stop his shoulders from shaking as Naruto's face turned bright red.
"It's not funny!" Naruto cringed. "It was all slimy and acidic, and the smell! I swear, I'm traumatized for life! I can't even sit on Gamabunta's tongue now without remembering and freaking out. And you don't want to know what sort of therapy Ibiki and Tsunade tried to devise to help me get over that. Let's just say it involved slugs and slime in places it had no business being."
Sasuke laughed out loud. It was an undignified response, and quite rude considering how much trouble he had gone through to get over his own water phobia. But he suspected it was precisely the reaction Naruto had been hoping for. Sure enough, it only took a few seconds before Naruto cracked a smile of his own. Sasuke shook his head at him. "So it's not snakes in general that you have a real problem with, it's the slime in their bellies."
"It really isn't funny," Naruto insisted, though his twitching lips belied that. "I really did have nightmares, too."
"I'm not doubting that. But as I recall, snakes aren't the only creatures that swallow their prey whole. I hear toads do the same thing on occasion."
"I know, I know," sighed Naruto. "And thanks to my trauma, I may never be able to take advantage of that. Gamabunta's tongue might not be as flexible as a snake's, but it's a lot stronger. Only I can't stand to even touch it now. And I know, one of these days, my dad or Jiraiya is going to decide I have to be able to sit in his mouth and it will be right back to the slug therapy for me." He shuddered in revulsion, then came out of it with a slow frown. "Actually, I think I'm more freaked by the slugs now than I am by snakes. At least snakes are only slimy on the inside."
"What happened after you were swallowed?" Sasuke asked. He wanted to know more about Gaara's involvement, so he could determine if his guess about Sand had been correct. But if Naruto wanted to deny any alliance between Sand and Sound at that time, he couldn't risk implying otherwise. Naruto had mentioned Orochimaru attacking the village at some point, causing damage with Manda or similar sized summons. Had he gone on to do that after leaving Naruto incapacitated? Why had he even started with Naruto when he could have attacked the village directly? Perhaps Konoha was better prepared for outside attacks. That would explain how complacent the villagers he had seen appeared to be. An attack from within might have done more damage, and left them less able to react quickly.
Naruto sighed again, losing the last bit of humor from his eyes. "That's when Gaara got caught up in it. My dad had been trying to get us together for years, but Sand kept refusing. The exam was our first chance to meet and, well, he had problems of his own. When I busted my way out of the snake, he was right there, and we were still in the middle of the exam, you know? It was only natural for us to fight."
Officially, at least. Did Naruto believe that, or was he giving him the same story Sand had given Konoha?
"Unfortunately Gaara had gotten separated from his teammates, while Sakura had followed the snake that got me. She wasn't anywhere close to being a match for Gaara. If it had just been me and him, it might not have gotten out of control. But she was there, too, and he went after my weakness the way any shinobi would," he looked pointedly at Sasuke, as if hoping he wouldn't hold Gaara's actions against him. "That's when I really lost it, and he did, too. By the time we were done, Orochimaru had already done his own damage. I never even noticed."
"Did Orochimaru attack from within the village?" asked Sasuke. He didn't even know the girl Naruto was talking about. If she and Naruto had forgiven Gaara for whatever he had done, then it didn't matter what he thought about it. He was more interested in understanding what Sound, and possibly Sand, had been trying to achieve. "Was the attempted assassination meant to keep you too distracted to help the village?"
Naruto shook his head, grimacing a little. "Just the opposite. We think that Kabuto's attempt was meant to fail, just so I'd be caught off guard when Orochimaru's snake snapped me up and took me to Gaara. Orochimaru meant for us to fight and was just setting us up in case we didn't get pitted against each other during the final stage of the exam. We were tapping into our demons, so our fight was huge. We think Orochimaru only set his summons on the walls to keep my dad too busy to help me control Kyuubi. If Gaara and I hadn't reached an understanding, we could have destroyed the entire village ourselves."
"I see," said Sasuke. That was quite clever. It would have been better if Orochimaru hadn't needed to attack the village openly, but since Konoha had refused Sound's request for a truce for the duration of the exam, it wasn't surprising that Sound would wage a minor attack in retaliation. Some of the other villages might even call Sound's action justified, especially if Orochimaru hadn't done much damage directly. Sand's involvement would never have to be admitted since Gaara had merely been fighting a fellow participant in the exam. Even if that fight had spread beyond the confines of the forest and damaged the village, Sand could have blamed it on Naruto as easily as on Gaara. Both had demons, so neither could be held entirely responsible for the result of a clash between the two.
"That's all ancient history, though," Naruto said quickly. "Gaara and I are friends now. I don't see him much since I could never go to Sand, what with the Uchiha clan being right there. But now that we have a truce, I expect to be visiting him more often. We usually meet at the border of Konoha and then go off to train wherever we can find a quiet spot. My dad would be glad to have him here, but Gaara knows a lot of the villagers are still afraid of him. Are you afraid of him?"
Sasuke blinked in surprise. Naruto's expression was so wistfully hopeful that he was glad he didn't have to lie. "No. In fact, when I first learned about him, that there was someone our age that even adults feared, I wanted to fight him." He smirked when Naruto's eyes widened. "He would have swatted me like a fly, of course. But I was young. I had no concept of fear."
"Did you try? Did you talk to him? He said he'd only seen you from a distance, so I thought-"
"I never got close enough to speak to him," Sasuke admitted. He knew enough now to realize how fortunate he was that his ignorance hadn't gotten him killed. He had heard all about Gaara's attacks on Sand children their age and dismissed them out of hand. At the time, the Uchiha children his age had spoken of Gaara in the same frightened tones they had about Itachi, so he had assumed the fear came from ignorance and jealousy. He had never considered for a moment that there might be truth behind the rumors that the pale boy slaughtered anyone who came near simply because he could. "I did make an attempt, though. He used to sit on the edge of the highest buildings, easily seen from a distance. I got close enough to see the color of his eyes before Itachi caught me and took me home. Gaara might have seen Itachi, but I doubt he noticed me."
"What color were his eyes?" Naruto asked, with a strange smile.
"Somewhere between green and gray-blue. He had his back to the sun, so his face was shadowed." He had looked so small and unimpressive, dwarfed by the gourd at his back. For months afterward, he had assumed Itachi's anger and his father's disappointed censure had stemmed from the fact that he had left the clan compound without permission, rather than because he had been in any real danger. It wasn't until he learned that demons did exist, and Gaara really did have one, that he understood how stupid he had been.
"His eyes are green," Naruto informed him, that smile widening. "And he definitely noticed you. Part of me wishes you had been able to talk to him. He could have really used a friend. At the same time, just the thought of you going near him at that age scares the hell out of me." He gave a weak laugh, his smile faltering before widening suddenly. "We have got to get him out here, or go visit him. I can't wait to see his face when I tell him you almost challenged him to a fight when you were-" He blinked. "How old were you?"
"Five," Sasuke muttered, frowning when Naruto laughed. He could make light of his folly, but he didn't like hearing Naruto do so. "I didn't know any better." And that foolish attempt to prove himself outside the clan walls was likely the reason he was sent on his first mission less than a year later. He had shamed his father, but he had also drawn enough attention to himself for the clan to use him. That was worth the embarrassment he felt about it now.
"I'm not making fun of you," Naruto insisted. His grin was so wide that his eyes were glittering slits of mirth. "I'm just imagining it. You were so cute when you were little, and I bet Gaara was, too. We'll have to time it so you have a kid at the same time he does, that way they can grow up together. The sheer cuteness factor alone of a combo like that would kill anyone."
"Me?" Sasuke blurted. Naruto must have seen how alarmed he was, because he sobered rapidly.
"What?" Naruto blinked, looking confused. "What's wrong?"
"Your father mentioned children to me today," Sasuke said tightly. "I assumed he was referring to yours. Is he intending to breed me as well?"
"Breed you?" Naruto repeated with a grimace. "Of course not! You're not a dog."
"You just referred to me having a child."
Naruto's eyes widened, his expression both stunned and stricken. "But...I thought you wanted children. You said you would have married just to have children. Are you saying you don't want any? None at all?"
"No," Sasuke admitted, "I'm not saying that." He rose from the table, his hand cutting through the air when Naruto started to follow. "Give me a minute to think."
He shut himself in the bathroom and dropped to sit on the floor with his head in his hands. He had thought it was a joke. When he was in the cell, Naruto had made an absurd comment about them having a child together. He had naturally dismissed that as being impossible. After that he assumed any children 'they' had would be Naruto's alone. It had never occurred to him that Konoha might want to breed him as well. Why wouldn't they? He wasn't just an Uchiha, he was a sharingan holder. If the village really did want that bloodline back, breeding him would be a sure way to do so. Any children he and Naruto raised would be loyal to the village. That didn't necessarily mean they would be disloyal to the clan itself, but they certainly wouldn't be helping it any. Which was worse? To die without ever passing his blood on, or to risk creating children who might one day turn against the clan? He had expected to die childless because the clan wanted him to. The clan had made that choice for him. Was he loyal enough to abide by that decision? Even if he had a child, there was no guarantee it would ever produce the sharingan. But he or she would have Uchiha blood, carrying the potential to a new generation. With Uchiha numbers dwindling, it would be a horrible waste to pass up a chance to pass the bloodline on.
That was just an excuse, a way to justify giving in to his own desire. He wanted children. His heart had leapt at Naruto's comment because the thought of a child of his growing up alongside the child of someone like Gaara made him yearn to see it. He had felt a flash of pride for a child that didn't even exist. That was the epitome of foolishness. That sort of thinking would only lead him to be as disappointed in his child as his father had been in him. Did he really want to do that to a child? He would have done it for the clan because it was his responsibility to do so. But the clan wasn't forcing him to now. On the contrary, they were forbidding it. Was that the real reason he wanted it so badly? Just some traitorous desire to lash out at them? The clan had never wanted him. Even after he had forced them to need him, they had been happy to throw him away. He had more value to them dead than he ever had alive. Maybe that was why they hadn't forced Itachi to marry. They hadn't wanted him, either. He doubted anything would suit the elders better than to have his father's blood end with them.
Naruto didn't look up when he returned to the livingroom. It wasn't until he sat down across from him that he ventured a wary look at him. Naruto was wearing his heart on his sleeve, hope and fear all over his face. That was sad, because Sasuke knew his own expression was as blank as could be.
"I want children," Sasuke said flatly. "You or your father can choose the potential mothers, but I get final say. Regardless of where they're raised, they will be Uchiha. And they will be mine." He would see to it that they were raised as Uchiha. Not the broken, desperate clan he had grown up with, but the ideal he had worked so hard in hopes of protecting. If the rest of the clan refused to acknowledge his offspring, so be it. They would grow up knowing who they were and valuing themselves.
"Ours." Naruto's confidence returned in an instant, settling over him like a shroud. "They'll have your name, but I want a hand in raising them."
So that was what the Hokage had meant. Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "I doubt our parenting methods would be the same."
"So we'll compromise," Naruto nodded. "Remember, your father and brother were both raised and trained in Konoha. When people think of Uchiha, they think of them. But they were born here. So were you. Just because your kids grow up in Konoha doesn't mean they won't be Uchiha. With my influence they might be more rambunctious than normal Uchiha, but they'll still be Uchiha. And they'll still be yours. They'll just be mine as well."
Sasuke raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Would you want me to have a similar influence on your children?"
"Absolutely," Naruto grinned. "I'll do my part to keep yours from becoming stoic introverts, you keep mine from being obnoxious extroverts, and they'll come out somewhere in the middle and have the best of both worlds. It's perfect."
"That's more realistic than us trying to combine our genes through some sort of bizarre medical jutsu," Sasuke allowed.
"I still haven't given up on that! I'm going to bring that up with Baa-chan as soon as she's not so annoyed with me. If she can find a way to extract an egg while I'm in my sexy jutsu and keep it from dissolving long enough to fertilize it with your stuff and implant it into a surrogate mother, it should be possible. Of course, I'd have to teach you the sexy jutsu if we wanted to try it the other way around. But it's probably not good to have too many kids at the same age, so there's plenty of time for that."
"You're insane."
Naruto pouted at that. "It's not insane, it's creative."
"Has it occurred to you that I might not consider you worthy of mothering a child of mine?" The insulted expression on Naruto's face was priceless. Sasuke scoffed as he began gathering the weapons on the table. "I get final say in whose blood mixes with my own. Don't forget that."
"Are you saying I'm not good enough?" Naruto sputtered. "I've got killer genes! My mom was an Uzumaki, huge chakra reserves and stamina to boot, and my dad is one of the fastest ninja alive, with huge chakra reserves of his own! You should be so lucky as to mix your precious Uchiha blood with blood like mine!"
Sasuke hummed doubtfully, not bothering to look up. "I just don't think I'd want a child by someone afraid of a forest. There's no such thing as a cowardly Uchiha."
"Cowardly! You!"
Naruto dove over the table at him, in a mindless tackle that even a civilian could have avoided. Sasuke didn't even try to avoid it. He caught Naruto's weight and flipped him over, letting his own weight and a bit of chakra hold him there. He smirked down at the startled look on Naruto's face. "Afraid of a forest, afraid of snakes, afraid of slugs and slime in general. You're quite a fearful little thing, aren't you."
Incoherent sputtering was all that made it out of Naruto's gaping mouth.
He leaned down, letting more of his weight press into Naruto's stomach. "Would you like my help in conquering a few of those fears?"
Naruto's eyes were the size of saucers when he finally managed to blurt, "Are you coming onto me?"
"I'm offering an exchange," Sasuke explained. "You did invite me to take advantage of you any time I felt like it. You haven't changed your mind about that, have you?" Naruto shook his head so fast his hair wisped over the floor. Sasuke took that as a vehement no. "Would you like my help, then?"
"Help...?"
He sounded so lost that Sasuke almost felt sorry for him. "In conquering a few of your fears," he reminded him.
"Fears," Naruto repeated, frowning a little. "I'm not afraid of sex..."
Sasuke's eyebrow twitched, but considering the position Naruto found himself in, he couldn't blame him for jumping to that conclusion. "I'm talking about your fear of snakes and that forest where so many of them dwell."
Once again, Naruto's eyes grew huge. But this time his expression was more awestruck than stunned. "You'd have sex with me in the forest of death?"
Sasuke couldn't have possibly gotten off him any faster had Naruto suddenly caught fire. Within seconds he was standing and turning away with his hands crushed over his eyes. A twisted grin pulled at his mouth. He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or kick Naruto in that perverted head of his. Either would have been an appropriate and fully justified response. As it was, he didn't do either. He crossed to the couch and sat, waiting until Naruto finally lifted his head enough to look at him.
"Would you?" Naruto repeated eagerly. "Because that would not only help me get over my fears, it would make that forest my new favorite place in Konoha!"
Sasuke snorted. Naruto had no shame at all. "Would you really want to have sex outside, where people who know you could walk by at any moment?"
Naruto sat up, all but vibrating with excitement. "Hardly anyone goes there on a regular basis. And the forest is really dense. If we set up some traps and posted a few bunshin as sentries, I bet even the snakes would leave us alone."
Considering the entire point of his offer had been to help Naruto overcome his fear of snakes, perhaps he should suggest they have sex on one. Sasuke shook his head in exasperation, his mouth twitching in amusement. "You're serious, aren't you."
"Absolutely! Having sex with you in the woods is my favorite fantasy," Naruto said earnestly. "My first one! I used to dream about that all the time. If you throw in the white shorts, I'll be your slave for life!"
"You're shameless."
"And you're fearless," Naruto grinned. "So let's go back to the forest and see how much we can rub off on each other."
Sasuke folded his arms over his chest. He couldn't wipe the amusement from his face, but his tone let Naruto know he was serious. "I want to train there. Often. With or without your escort. You said this arrangement would give me freedom to move around so long as I stay within Konoha's walls. I don't want that forest to be an exception."
"It'll be my new favorite place," Naruto promised solemnly. "You have my word. I never go back on my word."
"You already gave me your word that I would have freedom within Konoha," Sasuke reminded him. "I shouldn't have to have sex with you in that forest in order to earn what you already promised." Naruto's face dropped like a stone. He waited until Naruto looked ready to wilt into full depression before admitting, "But I will. Since you want it so badly."
"Sasuke!"
He fended off the impending hug, grabbing Naruto's shoulder and turning him toward the bedroom. "Get me a brush, ink, a jar, and some empty scrolls so I can store things. I'll make us something to eat that we can take with us." He gave him a light push and watched as he hurried to do his bidding. Naruto was so ecstatic he all but bounced his way into the bedroom. Sasuke smirked as he entered the kitchen. Having an open invitation made taking advantage of him far too easy. At this rate he might even start to enjoy it.
.-.
TBC