Sacrifice

by Arigatomina

NaruSasuNaru. The Uchiha clan has to make peace with Konoha after years of enmity. To ensure the truce, they hand over one of their own.

8. Chapter 8

They walked to the training ground. Naruto said he wanted to walk so that no one could accuse him of hiding out of embarrassment. By the first block, Sasuke was sure there was another reason. People were staring, just as Naruto had predicted they would, but they weren't staring at Naruto. Word must have spread about him. He supposed his appearance with the Hokage earlier might have something to do with it. The civilian stares were more curious than hostile, and the uniformed shinobi weren't openly staring at all. He was burning to know exactly what they had been told about him and he finally accepted that Naruto wouldn't say unless he asked.

He ignored the stares, the little hushes, and the shinobi eyes that discretely flicked at him and away again. There was enough wary tension in the air to set him completely at ease. This he knew. He might as well have been walking home through the clan compound as following someone he barely knew through a strange village. The key difference was that he understood why the clan had followed his every move, while he knew nothing about these people. Was it public knowledge that Itachi had infiltrated the village? Had the clan been viewed as a threat even before that? Did they agree with their Kage or, like his own clan, did they believe one Uchiha was as good as another when it came to revenge? He considered which questions he could ask without edging into things Naruto was unwilling to talk about. For now there was really only one thing he needed to know.

"What have they been told about me?" he asked, in a muted voice that wouldn't carry. Naruto was quick to respond, and his surprise seemed genuine.

"The truth," Naruto said, with a little shrug. "You're here as proof of the truce. The Uchiha clan gave us their best as proof that they trust us, and we're keeping you as proof that we trust them."

Sasuke had never considered it an issue of trust. Goodwill, perhaps, a peaceful capitulation on the clan's part, but no more than that. Did the elders trust Konoha? He hoped they didn't. He knew Konoha would be stupid to trust them. It was just a truce, after all, not an alliance. It was a ceasefire when they had never been at war to begin with. Maybe that was enough to set some minds at ease, though. With an official truce there was at least the possibility of an alliance, and less chance of open conflict. And the truce hinged upon the loss of both him and Itachi, making the clan no threat at all. For now.

"That's all?" Sasuke prodded, giving him a pointed look.

Naruto's lips twitched, and he looked away quickly. "That's enough. Anyone with eyes can see you're on good terms with the current and future Hokages. They'll figure the rest out on their own."

Meaning guesses, wild speculation, and no public statements or confirmations. That was certainly better than the alternative.

The forty-fourth training ground was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Sasuke couldn't believe shinobi would use something so mundane and flimsy-looking to guard a potentially lethal area, much less that the simple wards applied to it could keep anyone but civilians out. He ignored Naruto's startled warning and reached out to grasp the metal. The wards did nothing more than transfer a gradually increasing level of pain. He let go and took hold in a different spot. The wards didn't register the individual, so the message began at the same low level each time one touched in a different place. As long as he didn't hesitate in one spot for too long, he could climb right over the fence with only minimal discomfort.

He released his hold on the fence and turned to face Naruto. "Who is this supposed to keep out?"

Naruto was frowning as well, looking suspiciously from Sasuke to the fence and back again. "Anyone who shouldn't be in there. Genin and civilians, mostly," he said slowly. His face darkened into a scowl and he finally marched over to grab hold of the fence himself. He held on for a lot longer than Sasuke had. When he let go, he shook his hands out with a wide grin. "That doesn't hurt nearly as much as I remembered it doing. I only tried to climb this fence once," he explained. "I was going to climb over it really fast, but one of my sleeves got stuck and I couldn't get loose. By the time I managed to squirm out of my jacket, it hurt so much I really thought I was going to have a heart-attack and die. I never came back here again until the exam, and then they opened the gates so we didn't have to mess with the fence."

"Will we be going over or opening a gate?"

"A gate," Naruto said firmly. "There are traps set up for people who can get over but still aren't strong enough to be in the forest itself. At the gates it's a clear path for anyone who can unlock them. Well, clear of initial traps, anyway. The forest is used so much for tests and exams that there are tons of unsprung traps left over. They make a sweep to disarm the really nasty ones after each chunin exam, but they leave the rest."

Naruto led the way to the nearest gate, and Sasuke watched closely as he undid the seal. He didn't need to be warned not to touch this part of the fence. There were ominous wards and even a sign warning civilians away. He wondered if they regularly had trouble keeping civilians out of their training areas, or if the signs were in place because this training area was particularly dangerous. Naruto obviously thought it was. He shut the gate behind them, reactivating the seal, and then balked at entering the forest itself. Sasuke walked past him and stopped, looking back over his shoulder. "Show me something," he invited.

"What?"

"You were in this forest for days. Show me something you know. Where you hid, slept, foraged, one of the places where you fought, anything familiar to you."

"I'm not sure if I can," Naruto said reluctantly. "We didn't come in by this gate. We could circle around, but we'll run into traps if we stick too close to the perimeter. This training ground is huge and I've never been in half of it. If we got lost-"

"We will not," Sasuke said flatly, with more than a little contempt. "Don't expect me to believe you could possibly get lost within your own village. Even if we did manage to get too disoriented to backtrack, all you have to do is teleport directly back to your apartment." Preferably without him. If Naruto was already having second thoughts about joining him in the forest, he was unlikely to let him come here alone. He wasn't entirely unsympathetic about the bad memories Naruto had of this place. What he had no sympathy for was Naruto's reluctance to face those memories and get past them. A mocking smirk pulled at his lips. "Don't be afraid. I guarantee this won't be as traumatic as using slugs to confront your fear of slime. I'll protect you from the snakes."

"Very funny," Naruto scowled. He stalked over to point a finger in his face. "I'll be the one protecting you. You stick close to me. Don't wander off on your own to chase down snakes or whatever it is you're hoping to do in here. As far as Konoha is concerned, you're still a genin. You're not even supposed to be in here. I'm responsible for you. If you really want to train in here, then you'll have to show me you can handle yourself. That means no showing off and taking stupid risks. If you want to impress me, then take this seriously."

He sounded as if he were giving a lecture to a child. Sasuke couldn't even take it personally enough to be insulted. Show off? How Naruto could possibly think of him as someone liable to 'show off' was beyond him. Perhaps Naruto was simply repeating a lecture someone had given him at one point. He could certainly see Naruto being the sort to recklessly show off in order to impress someone. Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "You know nothing about me. You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Exactly," Naruto snapped, folding his arms over his chest. "Until I do, I'm not taking any chances with you. This area is used for the chunin exam sometimes, but it was originally a training ground for jounin. It's called the forest of death for a reason. Shinobi die in here."

"Shinobi die everywhere," Sasuke pointed out calmly. He should have known some of Naruto's reluctance stemmed from his fear of risking him. "If you want me to follow your lead, I will. Provided you lead me somewhere. If you're going to drag your feet every step of the way, then let me lead and see for yourself if I should be here. This won't be the first time I've explored dangerous territory. Just because I'm not afraid doesn't mean I'm not taking it seriously. Unlike you, I do know what I'm capable of. I was in this forest alone earlier. Don't forget that."

"You were only alone for a few minutes, though. Right?" Naruto frowned, eyeing him suspiciously. "Don't read too much into that. Only one team got caught during the first hour in my exam, and they were taken out by another team. We should be the only ones in here, so as long as we steer clear of the traps it's just the forest itself we have to watch out for. I'll take you straight through to the center. There's a building there where we all had to go once we'd gotten the scrolls we needed. I should be able to find where Sakura and I came in from there. Just stay close. I'll keep an eye out for traps."

Sasuke followed him into the trees. For a few minutes he kept silent, not wanting to say anything that might make Naruto change his mind. Then Naruto came within a hand's-breadth of setting off an old but still active trap and his annoyance got the better of him. "Let me watch for traps. I have the eyes for it."

"If you're talking about that trap just now, I wasn't-" Naruto turned with an insulted frown, and stopped midsentence. His face screwed up into a grimace. "Right. Sharingan. I wasn't even thinking of that." He sighed and shook his head. "You can see chakra. The only traps you'd miss are the spring traps and you're probably fast enough to avoid one of those even if you did set it off. No wonder you weren't worried about coming back in here. You've got it nearly as good as a Hyuuga." His shoulders slumped and he shifted on the branch, looking awkward and embarrassed. "I guess I sounded pretty stupid worrying so much about bringing you in here. I wasn't considering the sharingan at all. You don't have to worry about the traps or snakes, so there really isn't much in here that could hurt you."

Naruto acknowledged that now, but Sasuke suspected he would be right back to worrying at the first sign of a threat. He knew well enough to take advantage of Naruto's confidence for as long as it lasted. "Does that mean I don't have to follow in your footsteps?"

"Yeah," Naruto smiled weakly. "Sorry about that. You can take point. Just don't stray too far off. And, for the record, I really did see that trap just now."

Sasuke didn't comment on that. Whether Naruto had seen it or not, he certainly hadn't avoided it as widely as he would have. Which meant he probably hadn't spotted it until the last minute. It was a relief to travel alongside him, darting ahead to take them around any chakra traces he spotted. They weren't all traps, of course. Some were recent, probably left by other shinobi passing through the area. It wasn't long before Naruto relaxed enough to start pointing things out. They passed a cluster of trees with oily foliage that Naruto insisted were infested with chakra-eating leeches. Having never heard of such a thing, Sasuke took his word for it and gave them a wide berth. In turn, Sasuke pointed out some of the poisonous plants he recognized. Naruto was curious enough to follow him out of the trees for a closer look.

"It causes temporary paralysis," Sasuke explained. He snapped a thick leafy bit of the fern and uncurled one of the dark leaves. "You can eat it safely so long as you don't have any cuts in your mouth. Crushed and coated on a weapon, all it takes is a nick and you could lose use of your limb. Dried into a powder and inhaled, it can stop your heart. It grows all over the place in the Mist islands, so it's a standard poison for them. It only takes a few weeks to build up an immunity to it, though. They mostly use it against Sand and Rock, since it doesn't grow anywhere near there."

"I've never used poisons," Naruto admitted. "I've been hit with a few, but they didn't work on me. My dad thinks Kyuubi's chakra works like a natural detox."

"Good," Sasuke said. "Then you won't be suspicious if I take some of this with me for my own use. I give you my word I will never use it on a Konoha shinobi." Not that he would, anyway. As plentiful as it was here, most of them should already have built up an immunity to it.

They traveled on until they reached a stream that Naruto recognized. Sasuke let him take the lead. He was surprised by how eager Naruto grew the further they went downstream. The forest fell back and the water was crystal clear. This was a prime spawning ground for the giant snakes Naruto professed such revulsion toward. The babies would live in this stream for years before growing large enough to migrate to the trees for bigger prey. Since they were cannibals few survived to reach their full size. Perhaps it was only the fully grown ones Naruto had an aversion toward. They weren't venomous, and even the midsized ones were too weak to kill a man unless one was quiet enough to wrap around his neck while he slept. Only the giants were a true threat.

Naruto stopped in a clearing where the stream widened into a pool of mostly still water. "I fished here," he grinned. "I can't believe how little this place has changed. We built our fire right over there."

"You swam in this pool?" Sasuke asked, eyeing some of the tell-tale ripples along the bank. He hadn't given Naruto enough credit. He had assumed his fear of snakes extended to all kinds and sizes.

"Sure. Do you want me to catch us some fish? I noticed you didn't bring anything but rice. I don't know about you, but that's not going to fill me up at all. If you want to start a fire, I'll catch us some fish and we can have lunch right here. I haven't eaten since this morning, so I'm starving."

"I have something else in mind," Sasuke admitted. He handed him the bag he had packed the rice in. "You can start a fire. See if you can find a flat stone to prepare my catch on." He waited until Naruto had moved away before crouching on the bank. He deactivated the sharingan, knowing he'd need it once they moved back into the trees. The snakes were so pale he could barely make them out against the rocks. He nipped a finger and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the water. The surface churned as the snakes closed in and quickly began attacking each other. He snatched up the biggest ones, and waved the others apart. There were plenty of fish here, so there was no sense in them feeding on one another. His hand was large enough to scare all but one of them away. He plucked it up to join the rest of his catch. They were very soft, more like eels than the thick scaled hunters they would be in a few years.

Naruto recoiled when he joined him by the fire. "Where did you get those?" His eyes bulged and he shot a horrified look at the stream. "No! Those were in the water? I swam in that water!"

So he hadn't known. Sasuke sighed as he stretched one of the snakes out on the rock Naruto had found for him and chopped its head off. "They couldn't possibly have hurt you. Their teeth are barely long enough to pierce skin, and they only go after things small enough to swallow whole." He flipped the snake over and cut off its lower half. Naruto yelped when one of the other snakes slithered in his direction. Sasuke quickly gathered them up so they twisted around his arms, biting ineffectually at his sleeves. He cut the first one down the stomach, using tip of the kunai to scrape the insides out. Then he held the rest of the body to Naruto. "Rinse it off. Just dribble or splash water on it, don't put it in the stream."

"Why?" Naruto demanded, cringing away from him. "What are you going to do with it? Wait! You don't expect me to eat that, do you? Are you crazy?"

"It'll taste just like fish," Sasuke said patiently. "You could eat it raw, if you wanted to. But I'll cook and prepare it so you won't even think of it as snake."

"If it tastes like fish, let's just eat fish! I don't want to eat snake." Naruto was pouting like a child. "How can you eat snake?" He squinted at him suspiciously. "Wouldn't that be like eating your own summons?"

"Is eating chicken like eating a bird summon?" Sasuke returned drolly. "Of course not. Just rinse it off and skewer it over the fire. You don't have to eat any if you don't want to."

"I don't," Naruto said flatly. He made a big show of his revulsion when he reluctantly took the snake over to the stream.

Sasuke ignored the exaggerated immaturity. He knew he would get him to take at least one bite by the time he was through. He prepped another of the snakes, making Naruto rinse it. Then he took the entrails and the remaining snakes back to the stream. As soon as they hit the water and tasted the blood they forgot all about him in their frenzy to out-eat one another. He returned to the fire and sat there watching as Naruto munched resentfully on some of the rice he had brought along. At least he wasn't catching fish to eat instead.

"Do you know what kind of snakes these are?" he asked, as he turned one of the sticks so the snake cooked evenly.

"Albinos?" Naruto muttered, making it clear he couldn't have cared less.

"No. They darken as they get older. These are the same species as the one that ate you." He flicked him a taunting look. "You could consider this payback."

Naruto snorted, his mouth twitching as he tried to remain grumpy and resentful. "The one that ate me was a lot bigger than these, I'll have you know."

"And probably not nearly as tasty," Sasuke agreed. He lifted one of the sticks and used his fingernail to peel back the skin. He tore off a piece of the meat, offering it to Naruto and then eating it himself when Naruto refused to take it. He chewed thoughtfully, and then shook his head. "I'd like it better raw. It just tastes like cooked fish." He tore off a smaller piece and held it out pointedly. "One bite. Consider it a first step. If you can eat what ate you, then at least you'll be even with it."

"I killed that snake," Naruto informed him. "Forget being even, I'm already way ahead." He took the little piece of meat and sniffed it warily. "I tore that snake up. I used the kage bunshin jutsu and blew it up from the inside out. It was the nastiest mess ever." He smiled for a moment, smug about that, then went back to staring at the meat. He took a deep breath, screwed his eyes shut, and popped it into his mouth. A split second later his expression dropped in what looked like total disappointment.

"Well?" Sasuke prodded.

"It tastes like fish," Naruto sighed, glowering at him. "Even the texture is sort of fishy. That sucks. Where's the challenge in that? I might as well be eating fish."

"Except you're not. You're eating snake." He handed him the stick and watched as he first nibbled, and then began to eat in earnest. By the time he got to the last few bites, he certainly seemed to be enjoying it. Sasuke was careful not to smile. "Can you eat the other one, too? Mix the meat in with the rice, that's why I brought it."

"Don't you want some?" Naruto asked.

"I'd rather catch another and have it raw. It tastes more like snake that way."

"Okay, but I'll have to try a piece. It can't be worse than sushi. I don't think eating snake really counts if it doesn't even taste like snake."

He had certainly changed his tune quickly. Sasuke went back to the stream where Naruto couldn't see his amusement. If Naruto wanted to know what real snake tasted like, he would have to feed him a venomous one sometime. Even a thorough cooking couldn't mask their peculiar flavor. He particularly liked the desert adders. They took longer to catch and prepare and had less meat on them compared to the constrictors, but the strong gamey flavor was worth the effort. He didn't bother to bait the water this time, merely watching for a ripple and reaching in to catch the source. The snake was a smaller one, which was just what he wanted. It had a blood-filled bruise on its side that he would have to cut around, but otherwise it was perfect. Hopefully Naruto wouldn't balk at its worm-like appearance. He'd chop it up before offering him any, just in case.

He was amused to find that he needn't have worried. Naruto was a ravenous eater. By the time he had finished his share of the rice, he was openly eyeing Sasuke's. The fact that Sasuke had mixed the chopped bits of his snake into it was not a deterrence. He ate half of his share and handed Naruto the rest. His lips twitched as he watched him gobble it up without hesitation.

"Now that was a little snakey," Naruto grinned, once he had finished. "It was a lot better than sushi, though. All it really needs is soy sauce, maybe some pickles or peppers for garnish."

"I didn't consider bringing garnish," Sasuke smirked. "This is the first time I've even had rice with snake meat. I've only ever eaten them during missions. They're everywhere, so I learned to catch them to supplement whatever rations I had on hand. Their versatility is one of the reasons I decided to summon snakes."

"I don't know," Naruto said slowly. "That makes it sounds like you decided to summon them because they're good eating. It's a little creepy."

Naruto was obviously trying to get a rise out of him, so his response wasn't as scathing as it might have been. "I do not eat my own summons. They are not good eating, which is the only reason they don't eat each other. They don't even consider themselves the same species as their domestic counterparts, so why should I? As for hunting snakes, so long as I give them a share of the take, they've never had a problem with it. In fact, they expect it. One of my deadliest summons won't do anything unless I promise him venomous snakes to eat afterward. He isn't big enough to swallow them whole, but that doesn't stop him from gorging on anything I can find for him. He especially likes to have the venom sacks drained into his mouth so he can taste it. That would kill a normal snake," he explained, letting his exasperation show. "Snake summons are something else entirely."

"Do you actually do that for him?" Naruto asked, grimacing with morbid fascination. "Drip it into his mouth?"

"It's the only way he'll work. Terra is spoiled, but he's also tiny for a full grown snake. He doesn't make much venom, so it's understandable that he won't use it without a hefty reward. If he used his venom without feeding afterward, he might starve before he can replenish his supply well enough to hunt for himself. At least he has an excuse. The constrictors are just as greedy without being nearly as useful. I rarely used them for anything."

"One of my toads like sweets," Naruto offered. "Candy, junk food, anything bad for a human he wants in huge doses. I have no idea how he can digest that stuff. He's the only summon I have to feed, though. With Gamakichi, I just have to keep him entertained and maybe stroke his ego now and then. He usually likes being summoned because it gives him something to do. Apparently it's extremely boring on the mountain where they live. Gamabunta is the boss there and he hates being summoned, considers it a huge inconvenience. I had to stick on his back the first time I summoned him just to keep him from smashing me. Now I think he only helps me out because I'm as stubborn as he is and he finds that amusing. He still views me as an upstart brat trying to order him around."

"I've never tried to summon a snake larger than myself," Sasuke admitted. "There may be some that don't expect to gorge after every summon, but I wouldn't count on it. I avoid the ones that grow huge as they age. If I can't feed them enough now, I won't stand a chance later. Terra is the oldest summon I have. His personality matches his age, but he'll never grow any bigger than he is so filling his gut isn't too difficult."

"Can I meet him?"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. His summon was liable to strike at Naruto, if only to scare him. That wasn't likely to help him overcome his aversion to snakes. "Only if you want to spend the next few hours hunting venomous snakes for him to eat. I summoned him last year, just to maintain the contract, and he was very offended when all I had to offer him was fish and chicken meat." The little snake had gorged just the same, but he had threatened to bite him if he tried that again. Sasuke doubted he would since he had built up a tolerance for his venom and his teeth weren't large enough to do much damage by themselves. It was the principle of the matter. There was no point annoying one of his best summons just to satisfy Naruto's curiosity. "If I spot any of his preferred prey, I'll reconsider."

They dismantled the fire and then went back into the trees. Naruto's manner sobered the deeper they went. By the time he halted on a narrow limb, his expression was cold. He pointed downward. "That's the one that ate me."

The skull was the only thing left. Brush had grown up around and through the thick hide, which had largely been worn away by scavengers and the weather. Whatever mold had grown on the skull had given way to moss and ferns, so that from above it might be mistaken for a covered rock if not for the eye sockets. Sasuke jumped down to cling to the trunk of the tree across from it. This was as close as he could get without venturing into the thick brush that had grown up around the remains. There was no doubt this was the same species as the giants he had spotted earlier. He had only been able to make out portions of their hides when they had lain hidden below. This was his first chance for a closer look at one. The snout was short and thick, just one bulge followed by the eyes and then a solid flattened skull. It looked more like a large lizard skull than that of a snake. It was a strange shape for an ambush predator, but made perfect sense given its size. It had to unhinge its jaw enough to swallow snakes nearly as large as itself. There was nothing else in the forest large enough for it to feed on. A few shinobi wouldn't come anywhere near to satisfying a snake this size.

"Do you know how it was controlled?" Sasuke asked.

"Orochimaru."

He said it as if that explained everything. Sasuke forced down his annoyance. Naruto seemed to assume he knew as much about the leader of Sound as he did when in fact he knew next to nothing. He couldn't decide if he wanted to reveal his ignorance or let Naruto continue to make that assumption about him. He rejoined him on the limb, waiting in silence while Naruto continued to stare moodily down at the remains. What little light that filtered through the thick canopy would be gone soon. Then the snakes he had glimpsed earlier would leave their camouflaged hiding spots to begin the hunt along with whatever other nocturnal predators this forest housed. He watched Naruto closely. He didn't appear to be afraid of the memory, or angry for that matter. He simply looked morose.

"Have you considered destroying the skull?" asked Sasuke. "It could be five more years before the forest covers it completely."

"There's no point."

That didn't mean he wasn't tempted to do so. Sasuke shifted uneasily as Naruto continued his vigil. They were losing the light and this was not a good place to linger. It would be a thick path back to the stream, as dangerous in the trees as it was on the ground. They were enclosed here, with only a narrow strip of visibility through the trees to their right. Ahead was what looked like a hill, but could just as easily be the dark coils of another giant taking cover on the other side of the high brush and downed trees. Sasuke frowned, focusing his attention on a muddy green patch visible past a thick trunk across from them. Using the stationary trunk as his marker, he watched for any movement beyond it. Sure enough there was a faint rise and fall that might have been a breeze shuffling the leaves had they not been as motionless as the tree trunk. He should have known. There were only so many hiding spots even in a forest this large. With this territory up for grabs another had moved right in.

"Naruto," Sasuke said quietly. "Stay here. I'm going to secure the area." He was going to try, anyway. If Orochimaru had used a pact or ninjutsu to control these snakes then all he would do was annoy the creature. That would give Naruto a target to take his bitterness out on, though, which would still be better than waiting for the snake to come to them.

Naruto looked up and then around, noticing for the first time how dark it had gotten. He grabbed Sasuke's arm before he could move away. "We should get out of here. If we go that way there's a clearing not too far from here. It'll be a lot easier to secure."

Naruto tried to draw them to the right, but Sasuke pulled away. The only clean path was the worst one to take, in his opinion. "Can you kill one of these?" he asked, waving at the skull below them. "If one attacks us, will you be able to deal it serious damage?" He could probably do some damage himself with a large enough fire jutsu, but only if he had a straight shot into its open mouth.

"I'll blow its head off," Naruto growled, curling his free hand into a fist. "I have the perfect jutsu for it."

"Then stay here," Sasuke nodded. "I'm going to lure it over and up toward the canopy. If I can't stop it with genjutsu, kill it." Naruto clearly didn't like that idea at all. Sasuke cut off his protest with a pointed stare. "If I can control it, then we'll be safe for as long as we're in here. Nothing is going to come near a snake that big except another the same size, and if I can control one I can control another. It's either this or we make a run for it and risk stirring up other things nearly as dangerous. Which would you prefer?"

"I vote we go home," Naruto said immediately, with a droll glower. "I take it that's not an option?"

"Only if you want to go back knowing you ran away from a snake."

"That won't work," Naruto scoffed. "You just want to wrangle a giant snake, so you're trying to taunt me into going along with you. I'm not going to fall for that. I could have come back here and killed a dozen of these snakes if I wanted to. There's no point. I already killed the one that attacked me. Killing more of them won't change anything."

"Then you're not afraid of facing another one?" Sasuke asked lightly. The coils were tightening beyond the dark cover. If his guess was correct, its head had probably been pointing toward the clear right-hand path. It would have to turn to make a direct strike at them, assuming it didn't use its tail to knock down the tree they were in and drive them into the lane.

"Of course not," Naruto snapped. "I'm just not going to take a pointless risk by letting you run off to play with one of them." His attention darted toward the underbrush where the snake was preparing to attack. His preference was clearly to avoid a confrontation altogether.

"Fine. If you would rather make a run for it, lead the way. I'll be right behind you. If we're separated I'll meet you at the stream."

"If we're separated, you go straight back to the apartment," Naruto corrected him. "Now come on. And stay close."

Naruto took off down the clear path with Sasuke a pace behind. The snake immediately uncoiled, ducking out from under its cover and twining around the trees. Had they not been so close they could have outrun it. It tore a tree out from under them, sending them leaping in opposite directions. The head of the snake went after Naruto, who used a handful of bunshin to confuse it. Sasuke thought he spotted the real Naruto secreting himself in the canopy, but he couldn't be sure because the clones were just as quick to hide themselves. He leapt down on the snake a coil short of its head, and sent a quick burst of lightning chakra into its thick skin. It was just enough to get its attention without injuring it. He jumped backward as it whipped around, giving him his first clear view of its yellow eyes. He performed the strongest genjutsu he could without pushing himself, knowing that if it took more than that it wouldn't be worth it. He projected a simple command for obedience, calm, and loyalty. The snake jerked to a halt, its tongue flicking out once before its eyes grew shuttered and it collapsed in a heavy pile of loose coils. Sasuke winced at the impact it made, and then flushed when Naruto suddenly appeared beside him.

"What did you do, kill it?" Naruto asked, scowling suspiciously down at the snake.

"I think I put it to sleep," Sasuke muttered in disgust. He couldn't remember the last time he had overdone a jutsu so much. "I thought it was going to put up a lot more resistance than it did." He had only meant to calm it enough to halt its attack, not put it into a coma. He would never have guessed such a huge creature would have such a weak will. Maybe he wasn't the first person to control it this way. "Come on," he sighed. "It's harmless now. You might as well see what one of them feels like on the outside."

"Not me. I'll let the real body do that."

Sasuke's eyebrow twitched when the Naruto he had been talking to vanished in a poof of smoke. He heard a few more poofs before the real Naruto dropped from the canopy on the other side of the downed snake. Sasuke jumped down to land on the coil beneath the snake's head. At least it was still breathing. There was blood on its snout where it had scraped the tree on its way down, but otherwise it looked all right. Naruto reluctantly joined him, and Sasuke encouraged him to touch the thickly scaled skin.

"It's cold."

"But not the least bit slimy," Sasuke pointed out. He walked over for a better look at the bloody scrape on its snout. He reached up to close the wound with healing chakra. The snake's tongue flicked out over his shoulder, and Naruto let out a sharp curse. "Relax," Sasuke said quietly, before Naruto could get it into his mind to attack. "It's just catching our scent. I don't want to leave it with an open wound that will draw in predators while it's vulnerable. If we're lucky the genjutsu will still be in effect when it wakes up."

"Meaning what? It won't attack us if we run into it again?"

"At least that. It may even follow us and defend whatever location we're in. Assuming it doesn't sleep for the rest of the night."

"I don't want it following us," Naruto said quickly. "I'm just fine with it sleeping for the rest of the night." He shot a wary look around them, then caught Sasuke's hand. "Come on. Let's get out of here before anything else shows up."

They hurried away. Although Sasuke was ready to try a weaker genjutsu on any other snakes they ran into, they reached the clearing Naruto had mentioned without spotting any. He didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. If he could prove that snakes were no threat that would eliminate a good portion of Naruto's objections to him being here. On the other hand, another attack might be all it took for Naruto to call an end to this trip and rush them right back to his apartment. He needed to set Naruto at ease, to show him that this forest, like the fence surrounding it, wasn't as bad as he remembered it being. There were no enemy shinobi here now. The natural predators here were potentially lethal, but they had their own natural prey that didn't include humans. If they hadn't lingered in the snake's den for so long it might not have attacked them at all. They had invaded its territory, not the other way around.

Naruto produced four bunshin and sent them out to trap and guard the perimeter. He waved Sasuke toward the hollow of the enormous tree that took up one end of the clearing, as if he were a civilian he had been tasked to protect. Sasuke sent one insulted look at the proposed hiding spot and walked around it. He immediately spotted the bunshin Naruto had sent in this direction. As Sasuke had suspected, the bunshin wasn't bothering to set up traps. There were already plenty of active traps strung around the area. The bunshin was sitting in a tree, looking bored and annoyed. He straightened up when he spotted Sasuke, and winced when he saw Naruto closing in fast. Sasuke kept walking, ignoring them both.

"Where are you going?" Naruto demanded worriedly. "You promised not to wander off."

"No, you ordered me not to wander off. Nothing in our agreement forces me to follow your orders. I signed on as a partner, not a subordinate." Technically he wasn't wandering off at all, since Naruto was following right along with him. He was just looking around to get a feel for the area. Most of the unsprung traps were in the trees, designed exclusively for shinobi. The ones along the ground had long since been triggered by everything from branches to squirrels. The only evidence that the large predators had been bothered by the traps was a single gnawed off leg bone entangled with chakra wire. He paused by that, noting the long claws. He'd seen a lynx once not far from Rock, but nothing as big as this. Unlike humans, cats this large could very well make worthwhile prey for the giant snakes, provided they reproduced in high numbers. But the bone was old and he hadn't seen tracks or scratches anywhere in this forest that would imply a breeding population of any large four-legged animals.

"Are there big cats in this forest?" asked Sasuke.

"There used to be, but they kept jumping the fence to have their litters outside the training area. I doubt there are more than a few breeding pairs left. They resist training, so we can't have them loose in the village or roaming around fire country. Sasuke?" Naruto edged closer, his demeanor hesitant. "I wasn't trying to treat you like a subordinate."

"I know," Sasuke said coldly, "you were trying to treat me like a civilian, which is worse."

"It's just because we're here. If we were anywhere else I wouldn't worry so much, but you don't know this forest like I do."

"I know it has snakes, insects, plants, unsprung traps, and possibly a few very endangered big cats. Which of those do you expect me to have trouble with?" He turned to face him, his voice thick with contempt. "This isn't the battleground you're viewing it as. There are no people here. No enemies, no traitors, no would-be kages to turn the forest against you. It's just a training ground, one among at least forty-three others this village has. You may view coming here as a repeat of your chunin exam, but all I see is a rich forest to explore and train in. The only things holding me back are your memories of the past, which have nothing to do with me."

"I don't want history to repeat itself," Naruto said quietly, dropping his eyes.

"Then I'll make sure not to participate in any exams that take place here." That conned a weak smile from Naruto, but it wasn't good enough. He still looked as if he wanted nothing more than to rush him back to his apartment and keep him there forever. "Tell me, Naruto. Who did you hide in the hollow of that tree?"

Naruto looked away, folding his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders. "Sakura-chan..."

"Because she was attacked by Gaara," Sasuke finished for him. "Which only happened," according to the official story, "because you were set up by Sound." With resignation, he stepped forward and put his arms around him. Naruto immediately turned into him, hugging him tightly. He was such a tactile person. Sasuke wondered if he had received too much open affection as a child or not enough. It was no wonder Naruto's father had used guilt to sway him. He seemed to run more on emotion than logic. That didn't stop Sasuke from trying to appeal to his sense of reason. "All of your problems were due to the people involved. They're not here now. I may have transformed into her earlier, but I'm not her."

"I know that," Naruto said, with a little laugh. "I really wasn't thinking of you as her. For one thing, she'd sooner punch me through a tree than hug me."

Sasuke envied her already. He pushed Naruto back, holding him at arm's length. "It's time to take this seriously. Are you ready for that?"

"What?" Naruto blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?'

"If you don't want history to repeat itself, then this time you'll have to catch me. The last time we were in the woods together at night, I got away." He took the bag Naruto had packed earlier and removed two of the blank scrolls. He handed it back and then stepped away, his hand rising to tap the forehead protector Naruto had given him. "No using this to teleport directly to me. I wasn't wearing this then, and I'm only keeping it on now out of respect for the Hokage's wishes. Don't force me to take it off or I won't be putting it back on."

"I don't know about this," Naruto blurted. "I know it might not be as dangerous as I remember without any enemy shinobi around, but we're still in-"

"A forest," Sasuke cut in. "At night. With," he performed a quick henge, arching an eyebrow, "white shorts."

Naruto blushed furiously and seemed to have trouble tearing his eyes away from the clothing in question. His eyes widened when he finally looked up. "That forehead protector looks great on you, like you just graduated from the Academy." He bit his lip and took a reluctant step back. "You were only supposed to change the outfit, though..."

Sasuke smirked in amusement. "I'm too tall to wear these shorts now. I wouldn't be comfortable in them. Besides, I already know this is the same henge you used with your bunshin. Don't pretend your 'favorite fantasy' involved me looking any different from this. If you catch me and still want me to change back, I will. It makes no difference to me either way. All I'm interested in is the experience I'll get from trying to evade you." He doubted he would get far, but that wasn't the point. His primary motivation was to get Naruto used to having him out of his sight in this forest, and to prove that he would be perfectly fine on his own here. "Feel free to use your bunshin. Just be aware that I won't hesitate to dispatch them. If I mistake you for one of them, it will be up to you to defend yourself. Go too easy on me and I'm liable to kill you by mistake."

Naruto scoffed, a grin taking over his face as he started to get excited by the prospect of a chase. "You haven't seen anything when it comes to my bunshin. I could dogpile you with so many of them you wouldn't even be able to move, let alone dispatch them. I'll keep the number down unless you really make it hard for me. Then all bets are off. I won't use any advanced ninjutsu, though. We were under orders not to use any signature moves during that mission, so you don't have to worry about me pulling something you've never seen. I probably shouldn't use the bunshin, either, but I don't have any nindogs to track with so it should even out. This is going to be great! You don't know how many times I dreamed about catching you at the end of that hunt."

"I'm not going to make it easy on you," Sasuke drawled. Not intentionally, anyway. "Don't forget, all I have to do is reach enemy territory you can't follow me into. You'll have to do more than catch me, you'll have to keep me from escaping again and reaching safety. For this, that's the fence."

Naruto frowned at that. "There are traps all along the fence."

"And I have the eyes to get right through them. You're the one liable to be slowed down if not injured by them. Keep that in mind if you decide to try an ambush. The closer I get to safety, the harder it will be for you. Just like last time." He gave Naruto a dark smirk that had him bristling and forgetting most of his reservations. He was far too easy to rile. "Dispel your clones. Having those four spread out from the start would give you an unfair advantage." He watched Naruto grumble and bring his hands together, and then he darted away.

It was more of a head start than he really needed. Having seen Kakashi use the body flicker he was sure now that Naruto had been the one slowing down his pursuers. Naruto might have improved his speed since then, but so had he. Just having his sharingan fully developed made a world of difference in that it was no longer a huge drain on his chakra simply to have it activated. Not to mention he had been wiped out by the time he had made his escape, running on sheer desperation in the face of inevitable death. Now he was fresh and running on pride, which for him was nearly as strong as his will to survive. He dropped from the canopy and darted into a corpse of low-hanging trees. Although the moon was up, none of that meager light filtered this deep into the underbrush. Unless Naruto's demon enhanced his eyesight he'd be hunting him blind so long as he traveled along the ground.

He took shelter under a half-fallen tree, just in case Naruto could see well enough to spot his shorts from above. He pulled out the scrolls and used a kunai to slit one of his palms, dripping blood onto each. There wasn't time to draw out the circles, so he used a sealing jutsu to arrange the liquid into the proper patterns. He healed the cut, not wanting to draw any insects or larger predators down on him. A handful of pulpy dirt sprinkled onto the circles was enough to dry them and mask the scent. He gently blew them off and stored them away. There was no sign of Naruto, but he had already seen how silently he traveled in the trees. So long as he stuck to the thicker branches there wouldn't be so much as a wisp of leaves to warn of his movements. He dug deeper into the dirt and bits of rotted wood until he found a rock large enough to transform into a kunai. He wasn't about to risk losing his own weapons in this forest the way so many others had. With his newly made kunai in hand, he eased out from under the tree, pressing close to it to minimize the movement one might see from above. His instincts told him something was nearby, though he couldn't be sure whether it was Naruto or an animal. He waited a long moment, listening hard to the faint rustling of leaves and small creatures moving in the forest around him. The fact that they hadn't fallen silent was no guarantee Naruto wasn't in the immediate vicinity. He braced himself for contact and broke cover in a rush.

He spotted a flicker of old chakra above and to his left, and a blaze of it swooping down on him from the right. He leapt into the attack, swiping widely at him with the makeshift kunai. Naruto countered with one of his own, leaving his right side open for Sasuke to snap out the scroll. The bunshin poofed out the moment the open scroll made contact with him. He had been taught the seal to transport corpses, and had learned that it worked just as well on animals. He didn't know if it would work on living humans but he had been sure it wouldn't work on a shadow clone. Now Naruto would know he had a way to distinguish bunshin from the real thing. Which meant the person who suddenly darted out at him from the left was another clone, who hadn't received the information passed by the one he had just dispatched. He turned to meet the attack only to have the clone poof out on its own before it could reach him. Naruto had received the information, meaning the next batch of clones he made would be a lot more careful. He needed to get far from this area before they could converge on him. He paused only long enough to take the explosive tag from the trap he had spotted. He could rig it for a simple but loud diversion.

He didn't see any sign of Naruto until he reached the snake. It was still asleep, but there was a trace of chakra low on the trunk by its tail that hadn't been there before. Naruto must have checked for him here, and not too long ago at that. He quickly ran down the tree, holding onto the trunk while he reached out to pass some chakra into the snake's snout. The tip of its tail twitched, proving it wasn't in a coma, just calm to the point of lethargy. He had really overdone it with his genjutsu. He stroked the cool snout, silently apologizing for using it this way. It was a predator and deserved better than to be used as a big harmless distraction. He opened the scroll and stored the snake away. Naruto would be watching for him to try and make direct contact with the scrolls, not for whatever might come out of them. Hopefully he wouldn't get carried away and attack the snake while it slept. Unless Naruto had the misfortune to be right below the snake when it came out, Sasuke would only be using it as a diversion, after all, not an attack. He considered using a combination of henge and illusion to replace the snake in case Naruto came back through here, but decided against it. Naruto might just assume it had woken and left on its own.

He followed Naruto's trail until he came to a freshly made trap. He hadn't expected that. The trap used no chakra, so if he hadn't been looking carefully he might have missed it. This was the biggest difference from last time, he realized. Not only did Naruto know his destination, he had started out much closer to it. Whether he tried to circle around for a shot at the fence further down or cut straight through the forest for the other side, Naruto had the clones and time to ambush him from all sides. He also had the benefit of stamina. He could continue to make clones long after Sasuke was forced to deactivate the sharingan. Blind, he would have no choice but to hunker down and wait until his chakra recovered. Naruto was likely to use the forehead protector to find him if he simply vanished for a few hours. He decided to take the swiftest and most direct course, straight past the stream and out the same way he had come in.

First he rigged Naruto's trap. He made a regular clone, transformed it into a beetle, and gave it just enough chakra to set off the exploding tag when it fell on it. If the trap went off when Naruto passed through he would have to search the area to make sure he wasn't hiding there. That could buy him all the time he needed. He took off for the stream. There were more chakra-less traps in the trees now, thanks to Naruto, so he took the lower path. That was a calculated risk, because it could be exactly what Naruto had expected him to do. But his clone would only last so long before setting the trap off automatically. He wanted to reach the stream before that happened, otherwise he would be drawing Naruto right to him. He was so focused on watching for traps and avoiding the thicker parts of the underbrush that he ran right to the edge of the pit before he even saw it. He thrust chakra into his feet, stopping himself and pushing up and back. The snakes on top of the writhing mass struck out at him and he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid them all. Fangs sank into his left calf, reminding him why shorts were such a foolish thing to wear in snake territory. He used chakra to hold his back to the tree he had struck with his reverse leap, and lifted his leg to pry the snake's jaws loose.

It was a mid-sized snake, deadly only because of the amount of venom it could inject with a single bite. He had only encountered the species once before, but he had found its venom to be similar to one of the desert species he'd been injected with during his early training. This snake's venom came in larger doses but still wasn't as potent. He tossed the snake back into the pit, watching as it writhed deeper into the tangled pile. The pit was obviously man-made, perhaps part of a trap or the scar from a battle that had taken place here. The snakes had long since claimed it for their own. Sasuke couldn't begin to guess how many of this species must be in the forest for them to form such a large mating ball. It was what some of his summons referred crudely to as a snake orgy. He knew that was fairly common for constrictors, but he had never heard of venomous snakes breeding this way. Although a single bite would do little more than slow down a wounded shinobi by causing him to bleed out faster, there was enough venom in this pit to kill a small city. That was more than enough to satisfy his greediest summon.

He leapt onto a higher branch and quickly summoned Terra. The little gray snake immediately rose high, arching his neck to look greedily down at the entwined mass. Sasuke bent closer so he barely had to whisper. "I live near here now. The next time I summon you, I'll make up for last time without asking anything in return."

"Oh, ask for something," the snake hissed, turning to eye him closely. He gave no reaction to Sasuke's henge, assuming he even noticed it. Sasuke still wasn't sure if Terra simply looked past illusions, or if he couldn't see them at all. "It's been too long since I was last summoned. I feel unwanted."

As if this wasn't the same snake that had warned him not to waste his time by summoning him without a good reason - and a worthy reward. Sasuke raised an eyebrow and admitted, "All of my weapons are clean."

"I'll take care of that," the snake murmured dismissively. He turned to flick his tongue out eagerly over the pit of prey. "Call me soon."

"I will." He released the summon. Then he hurried on.

He hadn't gotten far before an explosion sounded in the distance behind him. Naruto's trap had gone off early. That either meant Naruto had passed through or something had tried to eat his clone. He hoped it was the latter, but knew he couldn't risk it. He doubled back and quickly began setting off some of the traps Naruto had left in the trees, leaving a clear trail around the pit. He doubted even demonic chakra would help him if he fell into that mess of venom. As it turned out, he needn't have worried. If Naruto had passed by the trap, it had only been with a clone. The real one was waiting for him at the stream, or to be more precise, in the stream. The moment Sasuke entered the clearing Naruto popped up above the bank and performed a multiple kage bunshin jutsu. Sasuke suddenly understood what he had meant by dogpile.

If it wasn't for the empty scroll, he would have been buried instantly. The bunshin were using nothing but basic taijutsu, but they were also grabbing his arms and legs, even jumping onto his back. He had never been in a fight like this, surrounded by sheer numbers who had no concern for their own safety. No matter how much he cut down on the number, Naruto continued to make more to replace them. Eventually the scroll was wrenched out of his hand. The clones who had grabbed it poofed out, but there were plenty more willing to sacrifice themselves in order to pass it along until it disappeared into the crowd. Sasuke released the fake kunai, attaching it with chakra to his feet to free his hands. He dropped and did a fast sweep to give himself more room. He knew the back ranks would jump him, so he flipped onto his back and released a katon straight up, burning them in midair. He then burned a wide circle around him. He didn't wait for the flames to clear before jumping into the air.

He spotted Naruto standing on the bank, wearing a wide smile as his hands flashed through the same jutsu he'd been using all along. The only jutsu he needed, apparently. Clones leapt at him from the treeline and he used a katon just weak enough to end shy of the trees to burn them all. But more were gathering beneath him and he had nowhere to go except straight down. He whipped out the second scroll. The curled snake landed on the army of clones, crushing them out of existence. He twisted to land on its head, intending to rebound off it and into the trees. He didn't need to. The moment his feet touched the snake's head it rose beneath him, shooting straight into the air until he could see right over the trees to the fence in the distance. It was closer than he had thought. Sasuke dropped to a crouch, clinging with his chakra as the snake swung its head around to hiss and bare its fangs at the freshly made clones who were suddenly swarming all over it. Sasuke pushed off with his feet, running down to the snake's snout where he turned to catch its eyes. The command for loyalty was now overriding the one for calm. Its tail snapped up to flick away the clones that tried to run right up its neck. It wasn't fighting, it was defending. Sasuke quickly modified his genjutsu, being careful not to make it too strong this time. The snake swung toward the stream, rushing past Naruto at a distance and taking him just close enough to leap into the trees. He heard it crash into the forest on the other side as he raced away. He had ordered it to return to its own territory, and he was confident Naruto wouldn't chase after it for petty revenge. Sure enough, the only sounds of pursuit were following right on his heels.

He increased his speed as much as he could without using the body flicker. His chakra level had gotten too low for that, and he couldn't risk losing the sharingan just as he was getting into the thickest traps. He spotted a strange web of chakra-laden wire strung out across the trees ahead of him and dropped to the ground. He avoided the camouflaged traps lain out beneath the web, and ducked around a chakra-laden spring trap. Except the chakra wasn't part of the trap. He only spotted the camouflaged hiding spot when Naruto broke cover and slammed into him. Knocked completely off balance, he hit the ground hard. More bunshin piled onto him, holding his arms apart and crushing him with their weight. He knew Naruto was just outside the pile because no clone could possibly sound that smug.

"Admit it, Sasuke. I caught you."

Sasuke gnashed his teeth and glared at the smirking faces within his field of vision. Every one of the clones looked as smug as Naruto sounded. "I've lost," he muttered. "Now get off me."

"I like it right where I am," said the clone on his back. Agreement quickly sounded from the others.

A hand groped his ass, another sliding up the leg of his shorts. The clone holding his left arm tried to kiss him, and the one on his back burrowed his face into the loose collar of his shirt to nip at his neck. Sasuke's eye twitched furiously as he squirmed under the sudden assault. He couldn't help but wonder if this was what the female snake in that pit had felt like. He snapped his teeth at the mouth trying to cover his own and yelled. "Naruto! Call them off or I will never have sex with you again!"

The clones vanished, leaving only a heavily pouting, and slightly flushed, Naruto behind. "That was a cruel ultimatum," he muttered. "You've had me running all over this forest looking for you, but I caught you before you could get out. I was just getting my reward. You did say you'd have sex with me in the forest."

"You," Sasuke snapped as he shoved himself up, "not your dogpiling minions."

Naruto grinned suddenly, in a rather creepy way. "You have no idea what it was like when I released them just now. I can still feel the way you were squirming."

"That's all you're going to feel tonight if you don't shut up about it." Ignoring Naruto's pout, he rose and brushed himself off. For a moment there he had almost thought he would make it out. It wasn't as if he hadn't broken through an enemy line before. But those had been real people who got in the way of their own comrades when they fell. Everything was different with opponents who vanished the moment they were struck, clearing the way for the ones right behind them. He didn't know how to fight that way, so he should never have tried a direct approach.

"Are you mad that I caught you?"

He was, and that was ridiculous. Naruto had used nothing but a few traps, clones, and substandard taijutsu. If Naruto had taken this even a little seriously, he would never have stood a chance and he knew it. That didn't stop him from feeling frustrated. He had made a serious effort to get out, but not his best. That would have meant setting the snake on Naruto, sacrificing it in order to make his own escape. Naruto would have had no choice but to flee or break his word by using some serious ninjutsu. He hadn't even considered doing that because this was just an exercise. He needed to remember that. The only thing he had done wrong was fail to realize just how ill-prepared he was to cope with an army of bunshin.

"I'm not used to being beaten," Sasuke admitted, forcing himself to meet Naruto's eyes. "I expected you to catch me from the start, which is why I proposed it in the first place. That doesn't mean I like it. You'll have to make good on your promise to train me now. I don't know how to fight bunshin and I'll be holding a grudge against them until I learn."

"Just as long as you're holding a grudge against them and not me," Naruto said with a weak grin. "You can spar with them anytime you want. I thought you did pretty good against them, though. I did," he insisted, when Sasuke glared at him. "What was that scroll you were using? I've never heard of something that can dispatch bunshin just by touching them."

"Let's go back to the stream," said Sasuke. He needed to wash out the snake bite before he sealed it. The venom wouldn't affect him, but the germs from its fangs very well could. He waited until Naruto was moving alongside him before answering his question. "I put a storage seal on the scroll. It's one of the first seals I learned. Since kage bunshin are shadow and chakra there's no physical body to store, so the seal's attempt to draw them in simply disrupted the mix."

"It tries to draw in anything it touches?"

Sasuke sent him a quick look, suspicious that he was merely playing dumb. But Naruto honestly looked curious, and a little disturbed. Perhaps he had never needed to store bodies. Most villages preferred to use their own disposal teams on the spot. "It only stores bodies. I know it can pull in animals, but I've only used it on unconscious ones. I doubt it would work on a living human. It isn't designed to store chakra."

"What if it were someone with really low chakra, who was unconscious?"

"I don't know," Sasuke admitted. "In that case, it might work the same as it does on animals. I don't plan to find out either way. If there's even a chance that a person might wake up inside the scroll it would be torture." His eyes flicked to the side to catch Naruto's. "I'm not trained in that, remember?"

"I'm glad for that," Naruto laughed weakly. His smile didn't last long. "I'm going to have to tell my dad about that scroll, Sasuke. He might even want you to draw it out for Ibiki. I'm sorry, but it sounds suspicious, maybe even forbidden."

"It's just a standard storage seal. I left the scrolls by the stream. Assuming they weren't destroyed, you can bring them back with you. Or I can draw it out again on one of the blank scrolls in your bag. I've been using that seal since before Sand recognized me as a genin. If Konoha considers a pre-genin level jutsu forbidden then there's something very wrong with the way your village rates things."

Naruto was quiet for a while, frowning to himself. Finally he conceded reluctantly. "Maybe it isn't forbidden, then. It has to at least be restricted, though. And it sure as hell isn't a pre-genin level jutsu." He shook his head in exasperation. "You've been spending too much time with Sound if you believe that."

"Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean it's restricted," Sasuke pointed out. "It isn't even difficult to do. It requires very little chakra and no preparation. Every retrieval team I ever encountered used the exact same seal to store bodies." Naruto halted suddenly, and he caught himself on the next tree over, turning to look back at him. He didn't know what to make of Naruto's expression.

"You're talking about Hunter-nin."

Sasuke made a face at that. "Only Mist hunters call themselves that. They hunt down and dispose of their own targets. Retrieval teams bring the bodies back to their own village after someone else takes them out."

"It's all the same thing," Naruto snapped angrily. He leapt to him and glared, his hands curled into fists at his side. "I should have known! Why were you holding back on me? Was all that talk about training and you having trouble with my bunshin just a ploy to make me look stupid? If you've been doing that kind of work, we could have had a real fight!"

"A real fight with you would kill me," Sasuke said coldly. "All I've been trained to do is kill my target, store or dispose of the body, and escape. In a real fight with you my only choice would be to escape, and we've just proven I wouldn't make it. Even if I wanted to give you a real fight, I don't know how to do it without risking your life or mine. If you want to teach me how it's done, do so. The only shinobi I have ever sparred with was my jounin instructor and even holding back your bunshin are far more difficult opponents than he was. If you thought I was holding back with them, you're blind. I couldn't do a damned thing with all of them holding me down."

The visible anger faded from Naruto's face, leaving confusion in its wake. "It didn't look like you were holding back at the time. But you're so fast, and you hid so well I had bunshin spread out all over the place and I only caught sight of you that first time. You keep going on about how you're still a genin, but you controlled that snake and you took out my bunshin with that fire jutsu like it was easy. Your skills are all over the place. You've been doing a Hunter seal so long you call it easy, but you didn't even try to use a replacement jutsu on my clones. Now that's a pre-genin justu. If you had done that you never would have ended up on the bottom of that pile."

"I can't do the replacement jutsu." Being labeled worse than a pre-genin burned. That jutsu hadn't been part of Sand's test, but he knew perfectly well that it was a standard genin-level move. If Kakashi had fought back earlier he would have pushed him into using it just for the chance to copy it now that he had the eyes to do so. "I've never seen the handsigns. I didn't need it on my missions, so I wasn't taught it."

Naruto winced. "I thought that might be why, but I didn't want to believe it. You can't even graduate from the Academy here without learning the replacement jutsu. But you can do summons, which isn't even standard. We have plenty of jounin who never do summons at all. I don't know how we're going to test you to figure out your level. I guess you could make a list of all the techniques you know and I can try to sort it out and fill in the gaps, but you have things like that seal. If that's used by Hunter-nin then it's an Anbu technique and not one of the ones I learned. I'm going to have to call in some help on this. Sorry. I'll train you as much as I can but right now I don't even know where to start."

"A list won't help," Sasuke sighed. "I've picked up too many things I don't know the names for, assuming they have any. It would be simpler to tell me what shinobi in each rank are supposed to be capable of and let me work from there. I met two of your village's jounin this morning. I don't know if your toad mentioned that to you or not. They were taken in by the weakest genjutsu I have. Does that mean jounin aren't required to be capable of recognizing and dispelling a basic genjutsu, or that the simplest one I have is at jounin level?"

"Gamakichi didn't say anything to me," Naruto blurted, his eyes wide. "Were you attacked? By Konoha shinobi?"

"It wasn't an attack. Your toad said they were just protecting their own. They wanted to know what I was doing in your village. One of them tried to intimidate answers out of me, so I sent them the illusion that I had run off into the trees to avoid answering. They fell for it completely."

"I'll find out who they were," Naruto said quietly. "Hopefully they didn't mean any harm, but-"

"Your toad was confident they didn't. And that's not the point. What kind of jounin would fall for such a simple illusion? Are they not trained to see through genjutsu or was it me?"

"I don't know," Naruto admitted with a shrug. "I guess it depends on the jounin. Not everyone is good at genjutsu, you know." He started to say something and stopped. When he spoke again, it was in a defensive tone. "One of my best friends got promoted to chunin without being good at any ninjutsu at all. He might never make it to jounin, but he's bound to make special jounin just on the strength of his taijutsu. Every shinobi has his own strengths, so just because you met some jounin who were weak at genjutsu doesn't mean all jounin are, or that people weak at genjutsu aren't qualified to be jounin. Your genjutsu might be stronger than you think, but even if it isn't that doesn't mean all jounin will be able to see through it."

"Which tells me nothing," Sasuke muttered darkly. If someone could make chunin without being skilled in ninjutsu he knew even less about the levels than he had thought. He knew every shinobi had weak points. If he had to name one of his worst it would be taijutsu. But that just meant he needed more training in that area. He couldn't imagine a system that allowed people to advance when they were lacking entire branches of the ninja arts. That Naruto spoke of it as if it were common knowledge made him feel ignorant. He hated that. "The ranks mean nothing to me. I don't know where the lines are drawn or why."

"I know the perfect person to teach you that," Naruto said confidently. His demeanor brightened and he threw an arm around Sasuke's shoulders. "At least we know one thing for certain. You're sure as hell not a genin. Come on, I'll teach you the replacement jutsu on the way to the stream. With the sharingan I bet you'll have it copied in no time."

In fact, he only needed to see it twice. Naruto did it slowly the first time so he could see exactly how it was done, and then again using only a one-handed sign to focus his chakra. It was this latter method that Kakashi had used so much during that mission. Without the sharingan it had looked the same as all of the one-handed shortenings he had seen used for everything from offensive ninjutsu to teleportations. He had Naruto perform it a third time using him as the replacement object, to see what the bunshin would experience if he were to try it on them. Without the sharingan it would have been too fast to follow. Even with the eyes he couldn't react quickly enough to evade and he felt nothing. Naruto was quick to inform him that the only surefire way to avoid being nabbed in a good replacement was to watch for it and move before it started. He then darted off with an invitation to try it on him. Sasuke was more than up to the challenge.

By the time they reached the stream the novelty of finally doing the replacement jutsu had worn off. It was, after all, a very basic technique. He had never needed to learn it because he was fast enough to evade without using a substitute. He couldn't see himself relying on it now. It might get him out of the center of a bunshin pile one-handed, but it wouldn't take him far. That was assuming he could even pull it off now that Naruto would be expecting him to use it. He would have to experiment with it if he were going to get any real use out of it. The jutsu was limited to things he could reach with his hands and chakra. Stored and summoned objects would take it a little further, but he doubted he would use the logs Naruto claimed were standard in Konoha. He was more likely to incorporate weapons and chakra wire, provided moving objects maintained the same momentum after being switched. Still, whether it ever became a staple in his arsenal of techniques or not, he was glad to know it. The next time he faced someone who overused the technique he would know how to put a stop to it.

Naruto was openly disappointed when Sasuke stopped practicing the jutsu. He remained animated, though, bright-eyed and quick to smile. Either he had fully overcome his reluctance to be in this forest or he was too distracted to think about where they were. When Sasuke crouched by the stream, he continued talking as he scoured the area for the scrolls. He didn't seem the least bit worried about his voice carrying into the forest.

"I never learned the original clone technique," Naruto admitted wryly. "To this day, I can't do it. It takes so little chakra and it has to be done just right. I know if I forced myself I could probably learn it eventually, but I can't see the point. The kage bunshin jutsu is so much simpler. The more chakra you use, the more clones you make but the less chakra each of them has. That's all there is to it. So I figure, why bore myself to death making generic clones when I can make the good ones with no problem?"

"If you did both you could mix them," Sasuke offered. He dug a kunai into each of the punctures on his leg, opening them up. The snakes in the stream went wild, but there were enough fish drawn in as well that they ignored him. He knew what little venom that remained in the bites wasn't enough to hurt anything in the water. "You'd have the same amount of clones, but the bunshin would be twice as strong."

"I know. Iruka-sensei used to talk about that. He was my Academy teacher, so he's probably the one most annoyed that I never learned that jutsu. But if I were facing someone so good I had to mix up my clones like that, I probably wouldn't use them in the first place. Not to mention people like you, who would be able to spot the plain ones from the bunshin. No, I've never needed it, so there's no point learning it now. I guess it's the same way with you, huh? Did your jounin instructor leave out the replacement jutsu because he thought you were already past needing it?"

"That's what he said. But it was a lie." At the time he had thought his instructor honestly believed he was beyond needing to know basic things like the replacement jutsu. Now he knew better. Advanced jutsus were built upon basic ones. The gaps in his understanding of the basics severely limited how much he could build upon what he didn't know. The scrolls Naruto was looking for were a prime example of that. He knew how to perform that technique, but he didn't know where the things he put into the scroll were stored or why the seals used on the scroll worked the way they did. He couldn't alter the technique or build upon it without knowing those things.

"What happened?" Naruto asked suddenly. He had appeared beside him and was staring in anger at his bloody leg. "Did one of them bite you?"

"No. I got this earlier from a different species altogether. Don't worry. It isn't a problem." He pulled his leg out of the water and sealed the small wounds.

"I thought snakes were the last thing you'd have to worry about," Naruto grumbled, shaking his head. "A snake summoner getting bitten by a snake...?"

"We probably get bitten more often than anyone else. It's the quickest way to build up an immunity to venoms."

"Well, I don't like it." Naruto dropped to sit beside him as he stored the scrolls in his bag. Only the one used on the snake was fully intact. The other was in tatters. "So, what did you mean when you said your instructor lied?"

"The day he was assigned to me, I asked if he were going to fill in the gaps in my training. He said that would be moving backwards whereas his task was to take me forward." His eyes narrowed in contempt for his own naivety. "His real task was to keep me right where I was. He admitted it the day I left."

"Then you didn't learn anything from him?"

Naruto appeared outraged on his behalf. That was gratifying enough for Sasuke to be honest with himself. As much as he resented having wasted the last two years, he couldn't really blame his teacher for that. He had merely been complying with the wishes of the clan itself. "He taught me how to train," he admitted. He had to give the man at least that much credit. "I was taught to take opponents out from a distance or to come in disguised and let them take themselves out. My hand to hand combat skills were abysmal the first time we sparred. I learned taijutsu from him. He wasn't very good at it, but he willingly gave me his best. His true skills lay in combining ninjutsu with weapons, mostly with chakra wire. I took what I could from that."

"You only used a kunai earlier," Naruto pointed out skeptically. "You didn't combine it with anything that I saw."

"I've only been experimenting. I don't have anything down well enough to use it in actual combat. Besides, it would have been tedious trying to collect any weapons I had used in this forest." Naruto looked as if he didn't believe him. He wondered if Naruto had heard about his response to Kakashi's mock test earlier. That had been as far from a combat situation as one could get. As Kakashi had been quick to note, a real opponent wouldn't have stood in one place while he experimented on him. His instructor had been willing to play guinea pig for him, but only until he realized he was trying to change his wind techniques into lightning ones. Sasuke still wasn't sure what had angered the man more, his inability to perform the techniques as they were or that he'd had the nerve to try and alter them to suit himself. Either way, that had been the end of his elemental ninjutsu training. The things he had been working on since then remained untested and unstable. It would have been a total waste of chakra to attempt them on Naruto's bunshin.

"If we were fighting in an open training area, would you show me some of the things you're experimenting with?"

"Yes. But only if you show me something in exchange. I want to see how you fight your own bunshin. Then I'll know where to start."

"Sure," Naruto grinned. "Then once you're holding your own with them we can try this again. In the daytime, though. My eyes aren't as good as yours in the dark."

"Speaking of which, if you want to have sex out here we should do it now. I'll be losing the sharingan soon. I don't want to be out here at night without it." He didn't want to rely on Naruto to ensure their safety.

"Nice way to make it sound like a chore," Naruto sighed. "You really don't want to do it outside, huh?"

"I don't care where we're doing it so long as no one sees us. But I assumed the point of doing it in a forest was to do it in a tree. When I lose the sharingan I won't have the chakra to stay in a tree, either. So if we're going to, we'll have to hurry."

"I didn't even think of tree sex." Naruto's eyes were wide, and he had a dumbfounded look on his face. "Why didn't I think of that? We're in a forest. We could totally do it in a tree. And I didn't even..." He let out a disgusted breath, shaking his head. "My fantasy always involved me taking you down with bunshin and molesting the hell out of you right there on the spot. Sort of like earlier except without you threatening to cut me off. I never considered the fact that it would mean doing it on the ground in dirt or grass. That's actually pretty plain and messy. But doing it in a tree? That's kinky as hell. We have got to try that. Not tonight, though. Tree sex is a lot more complicated than anything I've done. I'll have to come up with a strategy for it."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. Without a plan, doing it in a tree could be really awkward, not to mention dangerous."

Naruto was putting far too much thought into it, but if it kept him from expecting sex right now that was fine with him. All he wanted was to shower and get a few hours of sleep. He wondered what it would take to get Naruto to let him sleep alone on his couch. "Can we go back to your apartment, then? I've had enough of this training ground for one day."

"Yeah, though it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I guess it helps to be with someone who actually wants to be here. Thanks for luring me out here, Sasuke." He leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and smiled warmly. "You can let go of that henge now, and the sharingan, too. I'll take us home."

Sasuke waited until they were back in the apartment before considering Naruto's easy acquiescence. He didn't appear upset or even particularly surprised to find himself back here without having gotten any sex out of the trip. Had he expected him to back out from the start? It wasn't as if Sasuke had intentionally used up his chakra in order to get out of his promise. He followed Naruto into the kitchen, watching as he bypassed the freshly stocked refrigerator to dig a pack of instant ramen out from under the sink. Sasuke got himself a glass of juice and sat down across the table from him. "Are you disappointed?"

Naruto didn't bother to feign ignorance. He smiled sheepishly. "That we didn't have sex out there? Yeah, a little. But you were only going to do it because I wanted to. I know that's the only reason you do anything with me right now, but I'm really hoping you'll start looking forward to it at least a little. I don't want it to always be a chore you only do because you feel obligated to. I said if you liked it we would do it whenever you want. So I'll try to wait until you want to do it again. You do like it, don't you?"

Considering how hard he had come from it, Naruto already knew the answer to that question. Sasuke grudgingly confirmed it. "I do. Physically," he qualified. "Personally, I'd just as soon never do it again if I didn't know you wouldn't be satisfied with that. If you wait until I want to do it again, you'll be waiting forever. I don't share your need or desire for it. Don't wait for me to seek it out. If you want to wait, wait until I'm not particularly reluctant to do it again."

"Meaning you're reluctant to do it now?" Naruto made a valiant attempt to look understanding and accepting rather than disappointed and hurt. He failed miserably.

Sasuke sighed. All Naruto got out of this arrangement was sex and company and here he was wanting to deny him both. "I won't refuse to have sex with you now if you want me to. But I'd rather not. I'm not used to keeping the sharingan activated for hours at a time and that was the closest thing I've had to a mission in four years. Sex with you is exhausting even when I'm not already tired and sore. If we have sex now I won't be able to keep up." Naruto would probably get more out of sex with a bunshin right now than he would with him.

"I didn't realize you were that worn out," Naruto said quickly, looking both guilty and concerned. "You don't look tired, and you didn't falter at all on the way back to the stream. When you said you were close to losing the sharingan I thought it was just because you wanted to hurry up and get the sex over with. If I had known you were forcing yourself I would have taken you back here as soon as I caught you. Honestly! The last thing I want to do is take chances with you. Is there anything I can do to help? I could give you a massage. I promise not to try anything," he added earnestly. "I swear I'm not inconsiderate enough to take advantage of you when you're not feeling well."

"All I need is rest." He certainly didn't need Naruto fussing over him. "Did making all of those bunshin not put so much as a dent in your chakra reserves?" It was difficult not to be resentful as well as envious.

Naruto flushed and dropped his eyes. "It did a little. I don't usually make so many unless I'm going to keep them around for a while, mostly for training. If my dad knew how many I made tonight, he'd call it a gross waste of chakra. You won't mention that to him, will you?" Sasuke's eyebrows shot up, and Naruto frowned stubbornly at him. "I wasn't being reckless. I still had plenty of chakra left to protect us with. If we had been attacked by someone I couldn't handle, I would have taken us right back here. So it's not like we were in any real danger. He just worries. I don't want him to lecture me about not being more careful with you."

"Would he curtail future excursions?"

"Maybe. Even if I don't tell him you were low on chakra by the time we were finished, I'm sure he won't want me to challenge you again until he can get Kakashi to test you. I wouldn't mind that since I was going to ask his advice anyway, but there's a chance my dad won't want us to train without Kakashi supervising it. I'm looking forward to training with you myself as much as possible, just the two of us. With him around we'd have to go slow and careful and it wouldn't be nearly as much fun."

"Kakashi already tried to test me," Sasuke informed him. He'd just as soon not have the man involved in his training at all. "When he took me to the forest we arrived in an open training area. His test was as bad as Sound's genin test. He just stood in one place waiting for me to attack."

Naruto grinned, his eyes glowing with amusement. "Did he have his bells?"

"I didn't see any bells," Sasuke frowned, not sure what he meant.

"Then it wasn't a real test. That's typical Kakashi-sensei, though. It used to drive me crazy the way he'd just stand there reading his book, like my attacks weren't even serious enough for him to pay attention. The only time he'd budge was when I hid and made him come after me, or when he used the replacement jutsu on one of my bunshin to throw me off. Don't worry, though. Once he has his bells out, all you have to do is get close enough to touch one and he'll take you more seriously. He really is a strong opponent to fight with. If you get him interested enough to start using ninjutsu, he has tons of techniques. My dad was his teacher, but he still considers it challenging to fight with him. I love watching the two of them spar. I never know what they're going to do next."

"I'd rather spar with you," said Sasuke. "I'll learn a lot more from an opponent willing to engage me than I would from attacking a stationary target." If even Naruto had to prove himself in order to interest Kakashi, it was no wonder the man hadn't bothered to display his skills with him. Sasuke knew he wasn't good enough to impress him with an open attack and trying to would only frustrate and humiliate him. Had his weapons been poisoned he might have killed him with that kunai strike, but if taking him out had been his goal he would have simply used the sharingan. The point was to draw him into a fight without incapacitating or endangering him. Sasuke had no idea how to do that. "If your father puts him in charge of my training I might as well be training alone. That's what I've been doing for the last two years. It hasn't gotten me anywhere."

"He won't put him in charge," Naruto assured him. "Training you is my responsibility. You're my partner. He'll want you tested to know what you're capable of so Konoha isn't responsible for endangering you when you accompany me on missions. But anything beyond that is personal. If he orders Kakashi to supervise, it will only be to make sure I don't push you too far or wear myself out too much to handle an attack. I tend to get carried away with my own training so he prefers to have someone on hand if there's trouble. I'm not about to take risks with you, though, so he shouldn't worry too much. He knows better than anyone how much you mean to me."

His gaze was so direct and sincere that Sasuke was forced to look away. If Naruto had formed an emotional attachment to someone he had never even spoken to, that was his problem. Sasuke wouldn't pretend to understand, let alone sympathize. He certainly wouldn't accept responsibility for it. As far as he was concerned, Naruto's feelings were for the idea, the fantasy. Naruto would be lucky if he ever came to like the real him. Few people did. Interacting with people was not one of his skills and he was content to leave it that way.

He took his glass to the sink and rinsed it out. He could feel Naruto's gaze following him and wondered if he were hoping for some sort of response to his comment. He wouldn't be getting one. "I'm going to shower and turn in for the night," Sasuke said, once he'd put the glass away.

"You're not going to eat anything first?"

Sasuke didn't want to hear a lecture about eating habits from someone who considered ramen a good midnight snack. "I'll fix something in the morning."

He decided against asking to sleep on the couch. Company was all Naruto would be getting from him tonight, after all. He was regretting that decision by the time Naruto finished his own shower and joined him in the bed. Naruto turned off the light and climbed in a conspicuous distance away from him. Compared to last night the mood was awkward and uncomfortable. Naruto had apparently taken his reluctance to have sex as a refusal to have any contact whatsoever. All Sasuke had to do was look at the way Naruto was curled on his side of the bed to know he was feeling rejected. He was far too thin-skinned. Would he react this way any time Sasuke went to his own room after they moved? The more immediate question was whether he'd be bitter and resentful in the morning if Sasuke let him fall asleep like this. He would almost certainly sulk. That wasn't something Sasuke wanted to deal with just when he stood to gain from this arrangement.

He reached over to tug on a bit of the damp blonde hair sticking out above the covers. "Scoot back some. You're too close to the edge."

Naruto moved back, but only a few inches. He ducked deeper under the covers, his voice muffled and small. "I'm fine like this. Good night, Sasuke."

Just like a sulking child. Or a rejected lover. Sasuke sighed and moved over himself. He didn't press as close as Naruto would have, and the arm he put around him was on top of the covers. It was enough, though. Naruto immediately relaxed, turning a little so the arm curled more comfortably around him. Sasuke's lips twitched when he heard him give a contented sigh. If he was that easy to please this might not be as difficult as he had thought. He closed his eyes, determined to get some real sleep and secure in the knowledge that if Naruto moved in the night he was more likely to tighten his arm, drawing him closer, than to strike out at him. If he did that, Naruto would probably just take it as an invitation to roll over and snuggle. Naruto clearly enjoyed being held.

.-.
TBC