A/N: Just to clear up a few things that got pointed out in reviews... The
green boy was supposed to be Rock Lee. I am reuploading chapter one with
some better context clues for that. This is most definitely going to be a
series (yay me for escaping the one shot bug for now), but I don't know how
long it will be. Until I reach a definite conclusion, most likely. Other
than that, all I really have left to say is that if you have read any of my
previous work, it would be pretty obvious that I am experimenting with a
very new writing style in this fic. I would like it a lot if I could get
some feedback on what people think (should I continue trying to find a
niche in this style or is this painful to read?)... I don't normally ask
for reviews, but in this case I would definitely appreciate even a few
words, good or bad. Or if not, that's good too. Either way, I hope you
enjoy.
Disclaimer: As I'm sure you could have all guessed, Naruto's not mine, nor are any of the characters found therein.
............
The years had been somewhat kinder to the rest of Konoha if the pain of unavoidable war and death and mourning could ever be considered kind. The battles that the village fought were won and lost as a group, as a collection of individuals whose whole lives centered around maintaining that peace and that hope and that scrap of united individuality that made them themselves. That made them different and untouched and untainted by anywhere else in the world. The vibrant rainbow that was the network of love and pain and frustration and LIFE in Konoha continued to mutate and grow into something more beautiful than Tsunade could ever have imagined possible when she initially agreed to take the well-being of the village on her shoulders.
After her rather unwilling and rocky debut, Tsunade settled into her role of hokage quickly, as though this was the calling that life had had in mind for her all along. Aside from the tangled mess that was Sasuke and Naruto and Itachi and Orochimaru and the Sand and the Sound and a hundred thousand other less imminent but equally bothersome and potentially dangerous threats, things had gone surprisingly well. Her village was strong, tight- knit, willing and able to open their hearts and their trust to this newcomer who was not really new, but who had altered her life to make herself their leader. Despite the turmoil, despite the sorrow and pain and loss and absolute chaos that had been life in Konoha for years, the village of the hidden leaf soon learned how to accept and work with and eventually thrive under and love their new hokage. Life had moved on.
As episodes of violence gave way to longer and brighter periods of peace, the village finally began to move on in earnest. For the first time in damn near ten years, the future looked bright. It looked as if the past was finally ready to cooperate and fade gracefully into the background where it belonged to make way for the present and the future as it should have done long ago. Faded and pushed aside, pushed aside but never forgotten. Never, ever forgotten because forgetting the past is the same as inviting history to repeat itself whereas remembering and honoring the past will at least force Fate to come up with new, innovative disasters. As a possessed blue boy burbled a giggle in his sleep, the strong and vibrant and beautifully independent and blindingly YELLOW hokage snorted in unamused disgust at the train of thought that her mind was following. Of course, it was easy to allow the mind to chase demons and shadows in the dead of night when most sane people should be safe in their beds, but she was the hokage and an unthinkably strong and powerful woman who knew that she was above thoughts like these. Easy, weak-minded thoughts that were anything but easy to ignore, let alone forget.
Tsunade, just like much of the rest of the village, was well aware of everything that had transpired over the years between Sasuke and Naruto but unlike them, she actually saw past what they were and what they had been and what they had done and instead she saw what they had become and found it in her heart to care. Thoughts of the pair would occasionally sneak up on her and overtake her during those hours in the dead of night when all the world but her was asleep. She was willing to let them be, to live and let live so long as the two young men showed appropriate discretion and restraint during their rare ventures into the public world and when she took the time to really think about that, she realized that she did not mean public displays of affection. Those, she couldn't have cared less about either way. It was the threat and the promise of violence that worried her, scared her. Outcasts though they were, Sasuke and Naruto were two very, very dangerous young men with unpredictable tempers and who wielded enough power that even the most seasoned ANBU member should be afraid of them. Very afraid of the black and the blue with the taint of red boys because they could hurt anyone they wanted and they would kill if they must and she had seen firsthand what that little blonde brat could do on his own, years and years ago. It honestly frightened her to think of how much he had grown, of what he could do with an accomplice as crazy and willing and powerful as the Uchiha boy.
An unwelcome shiver ran its icy fingers down her spine and in an unpleasant and unwanted epiphany the old woman who still looked and acted young decided to send for the outcast black and blue boys. It would do them all good to see one another face to face and have a heart to heart so that they could make sure that they saw eye to eye. Such hope was logical and reasonable and everything that could not be applied to the two most unpredictable citizens of Konoha, but she would go through with her spur of the moment plan because it had to be done and the morning that would come much too soon was as good a time as any.
It was therefore not surprising that the first rays of light brought no rest for the tired and overworked woman but she, as yellow souls are wont to do, found the requisite energy in the sun to keep the silent promise that only she knew that she'd made to herself and send for the boys who had stumbled into manhood and self-imposed and popularly advocated isolation right before her eyes. They answered their summons promptly, not because they had anticipated the meeting but because years of training and living and breathing readiness for ANYTHING until it was as ingrained as instinct could never be forgotten or undone. They answered their summons hand in hand and unkempt, unwashed, tattered and torn with eyes flashing defiantly as they waited for their superior to tell them what she wanted after years of neglect. It amazed her, this united front that two men who did nothing but fight and fuck with the same equal, frantic energy could present when she knew the unrest and the turmoil that boiled just beneath the surface, constantly threatening to tear them apart. Perhaps they could still be of some use to the village they called home, the village that was no longer really a home to one and that had never truly been a home to the other.
The meeting was short and absolutely pointless beyond an uneasy "so you're still alive?" because there had not been any real and tangible point to it in the first place. In the end, Tsunade extended a foolish invitation that she did not expect them to accept and asked them whether they would like to rejoin the ranks of the ninjas who had unofficially abandoned them and who they had unofficially deserted in a mutual, unspoken agreement. She was declined and she dismissed them soon thereafter, the yellow healer finding herself inexplicably uncomfortable in the presence of these unpredictable black and blue and red-tainted boys and sending them on their way with a vague wish that they would at least attempt to make these infrequent visits happen a little more often. They were more comfortable as far away from one another as they could get, and all three of them knew it. Departure spelled relief.
It had never really disturbed Naruto how little acknowledgement he received for the last great service he had done and continued to do every single moment for his village, but the all-too-familiar glares and the stares and the quickly averted gazes that fell upon them as they strolled down the street hand in hand kindled a flame of resentment that had been growing deep inside as the red enveloped him over the years. While Sasuke hid behind the stoic face that he had perfected as a child and huddled inside a fortress of decaying walls that Naruto had breached long ago, Naruto fought off the red that was threatening to overcome him, to consume him, to DROWN him and clung more tightly than ever to the hand that was his only anchor to reality. Those blue eyes that were not really blue in the heat of this barely suppressed anger and resentment scanned the street restlessly and wherever they traveled the object of that unsettling red stare would inevitably shudder and move on quickly. Marked by a boy that had been the scorn of the village.
The part that could have been ironic and somewhat amusing if either man possessed a sense of humor any longer was that they knew nothing about Naruto or Sasuke or the miserable situation that they lived day in and day out. The truth of the matter was that the two were locked in a constant battle of wills that not even the great Tsunade could have guessed the extent of, with Sasuke constantly vacillating between passive and lost and scared and hurt and black and red and angry and violent and doing everything in his considerable power to answer the haunting call of the curse that branded his neck and Naruto, who barely clung to the thinning line between baby blue and the same blood red that his companion often showed, was the only thing that could keep the black boy at bay when he turned red. Kept Sasuke there and semi-sane and together they kept the enemy ninjas who inevitably slipped through Konoha's tightened defenses in search of one of the two outcasts away. Everyone, known or otherwise, was the enemy to them; they just didn't know it yet. They kept one another almost but not quite THERE, and it was a full time occupation which never ended whether they ate or showered or slept. Constant, obsessive physical contact or at the very least terrified staring was essential, necessary to keep the red taint of blood and curses and demons that stalked them as far from them as possible.
The stage was set, ready and waiting for the cast to arrive and the show to begin. Thanks to Tsunade's impromptu meeting with Sasuke and Naruto, the two main characters had been drawn out of their lair and into the public venue for the first time in months and an inevitable and unstoppable ball had been set rolling. Fate, her work at a temporary end, was sitting smugly in the background waiting to watch her greatest masterpiece in over a decade unfold.
The remainder of the cast was approaching the two stars in the form of a tightly-knit knot of young jounin who remembered what the blue and black boys had been once upon a time and who had chosen to forget old feelings and friendships and exchange them for wary fear.
Blood red eyes watched them come and flashed in undisguised and untainted hatred. Another unconscious giggle. Another pulse of red. Something stirred deep within the blonde boy and in a moment of clear and sadistic and absolutely mindblowing lucidity he understood what he and Sasuke had to do to appease the churning HATRED that was wrecking havoc on something deep inside, that was tearing him apart as memories of a past filled with rejection and loneliness and a yearning for acknowledgement from someone, anyone came unbidden his mind.
Clinging to Sasuke's hand moreso than ever before, the red boy who had been blue only minutes ago curved his lips in a smile that was anything but happy. This was going to be fun. For both of them.
Disclaimer: As I'm sure you could have all guessed, Naruto's not mine, nor are any of the characters found therein.
............
The years had been somewhat kinder to the rest of Konoha if the pain of unavoidable war and death and mourning could ever be considered kind. The battles that the village fought were won and lost as a group, as a collection of individuals whose whole lives centered around maintaining that peace and that hope and that scrap of united individuality that made them themselves. That made them different and untouched and untainted by anywhere else in the world. The vibrant rainbow that was the network of love and pain and frustration and LIFE in Konoha continued to mutate and grow into something more beautiful than Tsunade could ever have imagined possible when she initially agreed to take the well-being of the village on her shoulders.
After her rather unwilling and rocky debut, Tsunade settled into her role of hokage quickly, as though this was the calling that life had had in mind for her all along. Aside from the tangled mess that was Sasuke and Naruto and Itachi and Orochimaru and the Sand and the Sound and a hundred thousand other less imminent but equally bothersome and potentially dangerous threats, things had gone surprisingly well. Her village was strong, tight- knit, willing and able to open their hearts and their trust to this newcomer who was not really new, but who had altered her life to make herself their leader. Despite the turmoil, despite the sorrow and pain and loss and absolute chaos that had been life in Konoha for years, the village of the hidden leaf soon learned how to accept and work with and eventually thrive under and love their new hokage. Life had moved on.
As episodes of violence gave way to longer and brighter periods of peace, the village finally began to move on in earnest. For the first time in damn near ten years, the future looked bright. It looked as if the past was finally ready to cooperate and fade gracefully into the background where it belonged to make way for the present and the future as it should have done long ago. Faded and pushed aside, pushed aside but never forgotten. Never, ever forgotten because forgetting the past is the same as inviting history to repeat itself whereas remembering and honoring the past will at least force Fate to come up with new, innovative disasters. As a possessed blue boy burbled a giggle in his sleep, the strong and vibrant and beautifully independent and blindingly YELLOW hokage snorted in unamused disgust at the train of thought that her mind was following. Of course, it was easy to allow the mind to chase demons and shadows in the dead of night when most sane people should be safe in their beds, but she was the hokage and an unthinkably strong and powerful woman who knew that she was above thoughts like these. Easy, weak-minded thoughts that were anything but easy to ignore, let alone forget.
Tsunade, just like much of the rest of the village, was well aware of everything that had transpired over the years between Sasuke and Naruto but unlike them, she actually saw past what they were and what they had been and what they had done and instead she saw what they had become and found it in her heart to care. Thoughts of the pair would occasionally sneak up on her and overtake her during those hours in the dead of night when all the world but her was asleep. She was willing to let them be, to live and let live so long as the two young men showed appropriate discretion and restraint during their rare ventures into the public world and when she took the time to really think about that, she realized that she did not mean public displays of affection. Those, she couldn't have cared less about either way. It was the threat and the promise of violence that worried her, scared her. Outcasts though they were, Sasuke and Naruto were two very, very dangerous young men with unpredictable tempers and who wielded enough power that even the most seasoned ANBU member should be afraid of them. Very afraid of the black and the blue with the taint of red boys because they could hurt anyone they wanted and they would kill if they must and she had seen firsthand what that little blonde brat could do on his own, years and years ago. It honestly frightened her to think of how much he had grown, of what he could do with an accomplice as crazy and willing and powerful as the Uchiha boy.
An unwelcome shiver ran its icy fingers down her spine and in an unpleasant and unwanted epiphany the old woman who still looked and acted young decided to send for the outcast black and blue boys. It would do them all good to see one another face to face and have a heart to heart so that they could make sure that they saw eye to eye. Such hope was logical and reasonable and everything that could not be applied to the two most unpredictable citizens of Konoha, but she would go through with her spur of the moment plan because it had to be done and the morning that would come much too soon was as good a time as any.
It was therefore not surprising that the first rays of light brought no rest for the tired and overworked woman but she, as yellow souls are wont to do, found the requisite energy in the sun to keep the silent promise that only she knew that she'd made to herself and send for the boys who had stumbled into manhood and self-imposed and popularly advocated isolation right before her eyes. They answered their summons promptly, not because they had anticipated the meeting but because years of training and living and breathing readiness for ANYTHING until it was as ingrained as instinct could never be forgotten or undone. They answered their summons hand in hand and unkempt, unwashed, tattered and torn with eyes flashing defiantly as they waited for their superior to tell them what she wanted after years of neglect. It amazed her, this united front that two men who did nothing but fight and fuck with the same equal, frantic energy could present when she knew the unrest and the turmoil that boiled just beneath the surface, constantly threatening to tear them apart. Perhaps they could still be of some use to the village they called home, the village that was no longer really a home to one and that had never truly been a home to the other.
The meeting was short and absolutely pointless beyond an uneasy "so you're still alive?" because there had not been any real and tangible point to it in the first place. In the end, Tsunade extended a foolish invitation that she did not expect them to accept and asked them whether they would like to rejoin the ranks of the ninjas who had unofficially abandoned them and who they had unofficially deserted in a mutual, unspoken agreement. She was declined and she dismissed them soon thereafter, the yellow healer finding herself inexplicably uncomfortable in the presence of these unpredictable black and blue and red-tainted boys and sending them on their way with a vague wish that they would at least attempt to make these infrequent visits happen a little more often. They were more comfortable as far away from one another as they could get, and all three of them knew it. Departure spelled relief.
It had never really disturbed Naruto how little acknowledgement he received for the last great service he had done and continued to do every single moment for his village, but the all-too-familiar glares and the stares and the quickly averted gazes that fell upon them as they strolled down the street hand in hand kindled a flame of resentment that had been growing deep inside as the red enveloped him over the years. While Sasuke hid behind the stoic face that he had perfected as a child and huddled inside a fortress of decaying walls that Naruto had breached long ago, Naruto fought off the red that was threatening to overcome him, to consume him, to DROWN him and clung more tightly than ever to the hand that was his only anchor to reality. Those blue eyes that were not really blue in the heat of this barely suppressed anger and resentment scanned the street restlessly and wherever they traveled the object of that unsettling red stare would inevitably shudder and move on quickly. Marked by a boy that had been the scorn of the village.
The part that could have been ironic and somewhat amusing if either man possessed a sense of humor any longer was that they knew nothing about Naruto or Sasuke or the miserable situation that they lived day in and day out. The truth of the matter was that the two were locked in a constant battle of wills that not even the great Tsunade could have guessed the extent of, with Sasuke constantly vacillating between passive and lost and scared and hurt and black and red and angry and violent and doing everything in his considerable power to answer the haunting call of the curse that branded his neck and Naruto, who barely clung to the thinning line between baby blue and the same blood red that his companion often showed, was the only thing that could keep the black boy at bay when he turned red. Kept Sasuke there and semi-sane and together they kept the enemy ninjas who inevitably slipped through Konoha's tightened defenses in search of one of the two outcasts away. Everyone, known or otherwise, was the enemy to them; they just didn't know it yet. They kept one another almost but not quite THERE, and it was a full time occupation which never ended whether they ate or showered or slept. Constant, obsessive physical contact or at the very least terrified staring was essential, necessary to keep the red taint of blood and curses and demons that stalked them as far from them as possible.
The stage was set, ready and waiting for the cast to arrive and the show to begin. Thanks to Tsunade's impromptu meeting with Sasuke and Naruto, the two main characters had been drawn out of their lair and into the public venue for the first time in months and an inevitable and unstoppable ball had been set rolling. Fate, her work at a temporary end, was sitting smugly in the background waiting to watch her greatest masterpiece in over a decade unfold.
The remainder of the cast was approaching the two stars in the form of a tightly-knit knot of young jounin who remembered what the blue and black boys had been once upon a time and who had chosen to forget old feelings and friendships and exchange them for wary fear.
Blood red eyes watched them come and flashed in undisguised and untainted hatred. Another unconscious giggle. Another pulse of red. Something stirred deep within the blonde boy and in a moment of clear and sadistic and absolutely mindblowing lucidity he understood what he and Sasuke had to do to appease the churning HATRED that was wrecking havoc on something deep inside, that was tearing him apart as memories of a past filled with rejection and loneliness and a yearning for acknowledgement from someone, anyone came unbidden his mind.
Clinging to Sasuke's hand moreso than ever before, the red boy who had been blue only minutes ago curved his lips in a smile that was anything but happy. This was going to be fun. For both of them.