NARUTO © Kishimoto Masashi • Shueisha • Studio Pierrot • TV Tokyo. All
rights reserved. Non-profit fun ahead! Fanfic named by Iruka.
Warnings: Eventual fluffy friendship between the boys. Do not read if thou art not a fan of fluff!
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Crossroads of Life
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Chapter Two
Sasuke sat on one of the only two chairs in the room. He took much care to make sure that this was the more comfortable one. There was now proper light filtering through the window, so he stared blankly at the little house, scratching his tousled head with sleepiness.
Last night had been a living nightmare. The little rascal by the name of Uzumaki Naruto kept him awake the whole time, blabbering on and on about life the way he viewed it and the people in this section of Konoha like it was the only thing he ever knew in his whole life. Everytime Sasuke thought the blond had run out of things to say, he would suddenly unleash a new barrage of descriptions and narratives and launch into yet another pseudo rant.
The scariest part of it all was that, Sasuke actually deigned himself to respond.
Sometimes it would be just a word or two, when Sasuke felt the need to break the dull monotony of Naruto's constant chatter. Most of the time, though, it was either a full-scale jibe at the blond's rather scary lack of knowledge of chakra and ninja despite his excellent control, or a massive, scathing argument about who had the most creative way of name-calling.
Then at dawn, Naruto suddenly stood up with a strange glint in his eye, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bucket of something and ran out of the house, not even casting a glance back.
Sasuke thought he would welcome the sudden departure of the noisy boy, and could now concentrate on trying to find a way to avoid the high-level guards that had most certainly have placed on every checkpoint and along the borders. He realised unhappily though, that he was 1) hungry, 2) sleepy and 3) unable to think because it was now /too/ quiet. When Naruto returned, and if he dared say anything more, he was so going to drown the blond's head in the sink - nevermind whose house this was.
He decided to tackle the problems one by one.
Sasuke's Current Priority List
01) Get out of Konoha Forest.
02) Get food.
03) Get sleep.
04) Get job.
05) Get trained.
06) Get aniki!
The dark-haired boy pondered for a while, then added,
07) And maybe thank Naruto. If boy stops being such a prick.
After a brief runthrough of his priorities in his head, Sasuke nodded to himself, pleased with his evaluation. He then looked around for something to help him achieve his first priority of escaping the village.
Naruto's living room, Sasuke noticed, was also his bedroom. Nevertheless, it was a large room, able to hold a bed, a fireplace, a store of sorts, several shelves of books and scrolls, as well as a rather large table and a couple of chairs. Not bad at all. Noticing a transmitter radio on the far side of one of the shelves, he cautiously reached for it.
It was an old model, perhaps popular a decade or so back. Seeing how it was covered with dust, Sasuke wondered if Naruto even knew of the existence of the radio. Shrugging, he cocked the volume as quietly as he could and listened to the news for today.
"pop crack sizzle... that the murderer with red eyes has been identified- static-Uchiha clan-pop popcrackle-no efforts are being spared to- hiss hiss pop -all borders are being secured... -hiss-any information, pleasssss do not hesssssitate to -THWAMP-"
Unable to bear the drone and static for too long, Sasuke shut the radio up by slapping it against the table. He stared at the thing and sighed inwardly. It was just as he had expected. If he tried to make his way out with Genjutsu, he would definitely be discovered by the shinobi currently guarding the village boundaries. Looks like he had to lie low for a while.
And that officially brought him to priority two. Food. Looking up, he was instantly taken aback to find himself staring into a pair of bemused, blue eyes. With a yelp he tumbled ungracefully backwards along with the chair, recognising the background noise to be that of Naruto laughing only a while later, when he stopped seeing the stars orbiting his head.
Sitting up and holding his spinning head, he glared at Naruto angrily. "What was that for?!" He demanded, realising belatedly that he had not even felt Naruto's presence. This boy's chakra control was truly beyond good.
"Noooothing, bastard," Naruto stuck his tongue out, disappearing into the kitchen to put the bucket of paint away. He had grafitti'ed the houses of two art galleries, hosed down the straw roof of a flower nursery and cracked a few holes in the window of the school he was never allowed to enroll for. Some of the children had complained to him that the teachers were evil, cane-twisting, telephone book-tearing maniacs anyway. All in a good day's work!
Sauntering out, he noted that Sasuke was staring with interest at the various scrolls in the shelves - scrolls he had never had any use for. He briefly glanced around and was disappointed to see that neither Kakashi nor Itachi had returned yet. "Hey Sasuke," he called out, and the other boy turned to look at him questioningly. "Did you see a silver dog or a black cat around while I was gone?"
The other boy blinked, then slowly shook his head.
"Hmmm..." The boy turned his attention away and pouted. "... They're usually not this late... Don't tell me they've really killed each other? That can't be... Hmmm..."
"Hey," Sasuke's sharp, slightly annoyed voice caused Naruto to look up. "Do all these scrolls," the Uchiha gestured to the shelf behind him, "belong to you?"
"Does it look like there's someone else in the house it could belong to?" Naruto complained. "I thought you were smarter than that."
This time, instead of a smartass reply, all Naruto got was a strange stare from Sasuke.
"Stop staring at me like that," the blond shivered purposely. "You're creeping me out."
Sasuke did look away, but only after staring for a while more. "Naruto," he began, "let me ask you again. Are you a ninja?"
"Huh?"
"Don't ask me questions back, don't make stupid /I'm not a ninja but I'm gonna be one/ statements. Just answer me," Sasuke folded his arms across his chest and glanced at the boy seriously.
"I... ugh..." Unable to anticipate what Sasuke wanted to do with the information, Naruto bit his lower lip and looked away. "No. I'm not."
"Do you know anybody who is, then?"
"No... oh wait, I know you're a ninja!"
Eye roll. "Besides me."
A pout. "No, then."
"What about the person who gave you all these scrolls?"
"Iruka-sensei? Nah, he's just a merchant! He uses these scrolls to teach me how to read!"
"... Iruka-sensei?"
"Yeah!" Naruto bounced about happily, "He's the best! He's the only one who treats me like a human around here! Everybody else thinks I'm some jinx or monster!" The boy continued, still with the happy grin, as if being ostracised did not bother him at all.
And to that, Sasuke rose an eyebrow inquisitively. Although he was in a rush to escape from the riot that was the search party yesterday night, he did overhear a rather unjustified argument between Naruto and the searchers. He had just about convinced himself that he was in the house of a terrible criminal when Naruto shrieked at him in the dark, bringing down any possibility of /that/ being true.
He had been wondering, but could find no real resolution. Perhaps he would be better off asking questions, which he did, saying the first thing that came to his mind, "Why do they hate you so much?"
"I'll be damned if I knew," Naruto snorted and turned his head away. "It's been like that since I could remember. Better not ask questions anymore, and just deal them the same hand they deal me!" The blond grinned, this time in a determined manner.
After a short silence, Sasuke probed, "Is that why you went out so early this morning?"
"Of course!" Naruto said in glee. "Nothing beats grafitti'ing the gallery windows with paint at the break of dawn!"
The other boy shot him an incredulous look. "And you wonder why people hate you?"
Naruto paused in his reverie and pointed rudely at Sasuke, growling unhappily, "Shut up, you! What do you know about me?! They've hated me long before I started playing pranks on them! And why do you care anyway? Speaking of you, you're going to leave today, right?" The blond paused with a semi-scowl, semi-pout on his face. "Have you figured out how to do it yet? The whole town is on red alert looking for you when I went out just now. All the gates are heavily guarded and there are scary people patrolling the streets, picking on anyone who even has black hair. I'll be damned if you don't get thrown into prison the very moment you step out my house!"
"I knew that, dimwit," Sasuke shrugged indifferently. He removed himself from his spot in front of the shelves, casting one final glance at it before walking towards the door and peering out. "Maybe it'll be a bit dangerous to move around in broad daylight. I'm going to try to sneak away in the night instead." He looked away from the door to find Naruto staring at him with a hard frown on his face, suspicion clear in his features. He sighed. "What is it /now/, idiot?"
Choosing to ignore that stab at his intelligence, Naruto pointed at the dark-haired teen, saying, "You really did kill those people, didn't you?"
"Oh, for crying out loud," Sasuke buried his face in his hands for a brief moment. As soon as he emerged back into the open he threw Naruto a look of disdain and mumbled, "Just believe what you want to believe, but you'll be rid of me before long, so enjoy your taunting while it lasts."
"But you do look like that guy!" Naruto whined, bouncing up towards Sasuke to get a better look. "Okay, except that you can change your eye colour whenever you feel like it. But still!"
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Sasuke raised a hand and whacked Naruto across the back of his head continually. "There're a lot of people," Whack! "... who look alike in this world!" Whack! "Just too bad for me I had to look like some S-class criminal," Whack! "... hiding his life away in this small suburb," Whack! "... is that what you mean?"
In reply, Naruto swatted Sasuke's hands away angrily and growled. "I wasn't kidding! You're not taking me seriously, are you?! You really do look like him! If I were any of the villagers I would've screamed when I saw you too, especially since your photograph just came out on the papers yesterday night!"
While Naruto had been busy with his large, sweeping gestures, Kakashi sauntered in from the front door, a wad of rolled up newspapers clamped tightly in between his mouth. He stopped just in front of the surprised Sasuke, tilting his head and wagging his tail. The young Uchiha wondered briefly how a dog could reflect such amusement in its eyes, before Naruto's loud voice came into the picture again.
"Yes! That's the one!" The blond loudmouth was saying. "Great job, Kakashi! Now give him the paper and show him what I mean!"
"... Kakashi?" The raven-haired boy's eyes hardened slightly, and immediately the Sharingan bled into sight. Naruto gave a yelp of surprise at the deliberate act and jumped backwards, although Kakashi remained where he was seated in front of Sasuke, still wagging his tail like a loyal puppy should and tilting his head to a side in mock wonder.
After several careful, searching Sharingan scrutinies, Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes, willing the bloodline limit skill away. He opened his eyes to suddenly realise that Naruto had backed into the furthest corner of the room from him, and that made him frown. "What do you think you're doing /now/?"
"But you!" Naruto protested immediately, "Your eyes! Red! Glowing, murderous, bloody red! I thought you were going to eat me up like all the other guys you already ate!"
"I do not eat people!" Sasuke bellowed in exasperation. Then in a smaller voice, added, "And even if I did I wouldn't eat an idiot like you."
"Argh! I heard that!" Naruto screeched, still from the far end. "And why the hell did you do that anyway?! I think you're much more likeable with normal eyes than with funny eyes."
"Well, excuse me!" Sasuke shot back, realising he had to shout, since Naruto was at a very far distance apart. "Which idiot names his dog after an S-class Nukenin? Of course it's better to be safe than sorry! And come back here, you! The rate we're shouting the whole village is going to find out that I'm here before the morning finishes!"
Naruto did eventually patter gingerly back closer to Sasuke, and kept alarmingly quiet while he was at it. At the same time, Sasuke had gotten himself into a tug-of-war with Kakashi on the newspaper the dog had in his mouth. So engrossed he was trying to death-glare the mutt into giving up that he almost missed Naruto's soft question.
"Nukenin? What's that?"
Almost jumping out of his skin, Sasuke let go of his hold on the newspaper in shock and almost stumbled into the sharp end of the table behind him. He stopped himself just in time and breathed to calm himself down. "I told you to stop that!" He snapped at Naruto, who was oblivious to the malice behind the tone, having been the target of much worse speech. The blond simply grinned and stuck his tongue out.
"I wasn't doing it on purpose, stupid," he stated matter-of-factly, "And Kakashi is Kakashi! What else should I name him? What is this Nukenin thing you were talking about anyway?"
As if in response, Kakashi barked once, and the papers he held clamped in his mouth rolled messily onto the floor.
Then he proceeded to slobber Sasuke, before the boy could dignify Naruto with a response.
"Uwaaah!!" The morose teen swat at the silver dog. "Naruto, stop laughing and get your stupid dog off me before I really kill you!"
The threat, of course, flew over Naruto's head.
"But he loves you!" Naruto managed to say in between guffaws. "Kakashi hardly ever slobbers anyone else, so you should feel honoured!"
Stuck between wanting to shoot a reply and trying to pry Kakashi's paw off his face, Sasuke settled for a grunt of disapproval. Can't have all the passers-by running down to the house because he was making too much noise now, can he?
Eventually, after Naruto had enough fun making fun of Sasuke, he commanded, "Okay, Kakashi, I think that's about enough."
That one sentence was all Naruto needed to back to zealous mutt away, and Sasuke scrambled as far as he could from the dog as he possibly could. He was still trying to get rid of the extra drool on his face when Naruto sat down beside him with a loud plop.
The darker-haired teen stared questioningly at his companion, who grinned and held up a full page newspaper article in his face. "See this, see this?" The blond pointed randomly. "That's you on the page, isn't it?"
Sasuke had to lean further out to be able to properly look at whatever Naruto was so excitedly trying to show him. Sharingan or not, you just couldn't read anything that was barely a centimetre away from your eyes! When he did, however, his exasperation turned into cold, chilling shock. He quickly snatched the page away from Naruto and stared hard at it as he held it in his own hands, not realising that they were trembling.
After dissecting and concluding whatever he may from the blurry picture, Sasuke proceeded to read the article in full, not pausing to even acknowledge Naruto, who had been chattering by his ear to no avail. Eventually realising this himself, Naruto snorted and turned to Kakashi instead. "So you guys didn't kill each other. Phew! Where's Itachi, anyway?"
Sasuke's head shot up straight upon hearing that word. "Itachi?!" He gave a clear cry of disbelief, the news in his hands long forgotten. "He's here? Where is he?! Tell me!"
Shocked by Sasuke's sudden outburst, Naruto was unsure of what to say in reply. Before either of the humans could take another blink, however, the door slowly and gently swung open, to reveal the sleek-furred black cat sauntering his way into the room, not even turning an eye to glance at the scene. He did, however, stop in front of Sasuke and took a few experimental sniffs at his toes. Then, as if on a whim, he rubbed once against the boy's ankle and then disappeared into the kitchen.
Sasuke turned to Naruto for an explanation, and the blond grinned. "That," he pointed in the general direction of the kitchen, "was Itachi."
After a short pause, Sasuke slumped his shoulders in defeat. "I give up. Please tell me you don't also have a hamster called Orochimaru." He glanced up at the wide-eyed look on Naruto's face and gasped. "No... you /do/ have a hamster called Orochimaru!?"
"NO!" Naruto's horrified answer seemingly appeased the nearly petrified Sasuke. "Orochimaru is such a sucky name! And what's so wrong with Kakashi or Itachi anyway?"
"Nothing, moron, except that they're both names of S-class Nukenin who abandoned the village at around the same time!" The raven-haired boy shook his head, and beside him, Kakashi shook his head in mock imitation as well. "I'm surprised no one's tried any dispelling Jutsu on them yet."
The blond was rendered silent yet again, as Sasuke frowned at the entity of silver fur beside him, possibly wondering if he should activate his Sharingan to check again, just to be sure.
Finally, Naruto asked quietly, "This 'Nukenin' thingie you keep talking about... do you mean like, ninjas who have abandoned their loyalties or something? That's why they're 'Abandoners?'"
Sasuke took a break from staring in distrust at Kakashi to look in Naruto's direction. "Something like that," he gruffly replied, then added quickly, "Or they could have been ninjas who left their villages for their own personal reasons. Whether or not the committee thinks their reason to be justified is another matter altogether, of course."
"Ooh..." Naruto's eyes were brimming with curiosity. "That's so cool and everything!"
Sasuke shot Kakashi a warning glare when he saw the dog about to jump on him to maul him again, then said to Naruto, "How can you not know about these things when you're living here?"
"Well excuse me, genius," Naruto pouted angrily at the taller boy, "It's not like we have ninjas walking around here every day, you know?"
Sasuke blinked in genuine surprise at Naruto's words, then simmered down before he asked anything else. This was too strange, even for him. It was like Naruto lived in another world altogether. Perhaps he would have more time to figure it out later, but right now, his priority was getting out fast, and without being noticed. "Whatever," he rolled his eyes to indicate that he wanted to give no more thought about the entire ninja fiasco. "Since you have better knowledge of this area than I do, care to tell me what you think my chances for getting out without getting caught are?"
In the meantime, Naruto had gotten hold of the newspapers which Sasuke had not finished reading and was staring at the picture, then at Sasuke. "You sure you're not this guy in the pic?" He asked tentatively, pointing at the grainy photograph.
Sasuke sighed loudly. "Do you want me to be?" He asked pointedly.
"Of course not!" Naruto's response was lightning fast.
"Then why do you keep asking?!"
"I just wanted to make sure that I'm not letting a murderer stay in my house! I don't wanna die before I become the strongest ninja in the world!"
"Hah."
"Whaat?! What was that sound of disbelief there, Sasuke?! You don't believe that I meant what I said?" Naruto angrily confronted his companion, who smirked and crossed his arms.
"Not like that you're not," Sasuke taunted. "What do you know besides chakra control? None, right? The strongest ninja in the world must know up to thousands of Jutsu, and they need to have trained from a very young age to acquire mastery of those skills. Anyway I see it, you don't seem to qualify. How do you propose on becoming the strongest with just one or two Jutsu, even if you do have excellent chakra control?"
All the time Sasuke spoke, Naruto listened with clenched fists. Nobody had /ever/ dissed his dream before. True, the lack of reaction on the villagers' part was probably because they didn't care any two way about it. But Naruto had slowly began to associate that sort of reaction with grudging recognition, and he hung on to it like a lifeline. Now, suddenly, without warning, there was this stranger, who could very well be a murderer, who stood by the inner walls of his house and callously dismissed Naruto's carefully built up walls like they never existed in the first place.
Naruto was pissed.
And for the first time in his life,
felt very alive.
"I may only know one Jutsu," the trembling voice of the blond drifted into the Uchiha's ears, and he tensed at the sudden influx of strange chakra he could feel vibrating from Naruto. "But it's more than enough," he looked up, a fierce, determined grin plastered on his face, "to deal with a ball of slime like you!"
Sasuke opened his mouth to protest, but was drowned out by the enigmatic words that followed.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
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True to Naruto's predictions, one Jutsu was truly all that was needed to defeat Sasuke. It was very hard to win, after all, if you had 50 clones of the exact same person stacked ceiling high against the one of you. Whether you were shinobi or not did not matter. Sasuke was still cursing and swearing at Naruto with all the most creative names he could think of when a familiar sounding voice cut through their tirade.
"NARUTO!!!!"
Both Naruto and Sasuke paused and turned to look at the entrance of the house, where a dark silouette against with the full glories of the morning sun spilling into the room from behind him. Naruto gulped and looked frightened, whereas all Sasuke could do was wince at the sunlight. Now where had he heard that voice before?
He found out before long, for Iruka stormed into the house with a vein threatening to burst from his forehead, promptly grabbing the real Naruto from amongst all his clones and pulling at his cheeks. "You fool! How many times do I have to tell you to get it through that thick head of yours that you CANNOT pull a Jutsu unless in absolutely emergencies?! What if it was someone else who was walking about? Do you know what you have done?!"
"But... but Iruka-sensei..." Naruto managed in between wheezes of air, "... it /was/ an emergency! I was trying to chase a stupid cockroach out of my house! The situation called for it!"
"A gazillion clones for a single cockroach?!" Iruka continued to pull at the blond's cheeks, wider this time. "I'd like to see how /big/ this cockroach is exactly to need such an amount!"
"Don't listen to the idiot, Iruka-sensei," a strangely familiar, yet dark and foreboding voice halted Iruka from torturing Naruto any further. The academy teacher cum spy on a mission looked downwards to see an unhappy looking Sasuke, stacked against the floor with countless Naruto clones, staring at him unhappily. "I'm not a cockroach. So please ask this moron to get his equally moronic doubles off me?" Sasuke continued smoothly, when he was sure he had Iruka's full attention.
Naruto's desperate and frantic yelling was all that was really keeping Iruka from just fainting there and then on the spot.
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Several cups of hot, scalding, boiled water later (Naruto hardly stocked tea, after all), Iruka slammed his mug onto the wooden table and eyed the two younglings before him with his best school-teacher, accusing look.
Naruto tried very hard not to burst into tears there and then, whereas Sasuke was looking at anything but at Iruka in the face. Kakashi and Itachi were standing somewhere near the kitchen doorway, looking on at the scene with great interest.
After a few mind-numbing seconds later, Iruka rose to full height slowly and deliberately. He circled the duo carefully, still looking at them with clear disapproval. It was almost hypnotical, and to Sasuke, this was a familiar movement. He'd seen Iruka do it in class so often that he could more or less mimick the action already. What he had never expected, however, was that he would one day be the target of this intense scrutiny - outside of the Academy, too. He winced, not daring to move too much for fear of being swallowed whole by the teacher. Adults were scary!
The raven-haired boy almost breathed a sigh of relief when Iruka's attention settled eventually on the blond beside him. "Naruto," the Chuunin was saying, reprimanding tone evident. "Maybe /you/ would like to tell me what was happening between the two of you before I came?"
"It wasn't my fault!" Was Naruto's immediate response, causing Sasuke to wince further. He briefly wondered if Naruto was deaf to shout so loudly all the time, before finding himself the target of a Naruto Finger Point. "This bastard here snuck into my house in the middle of the night and wouldn't leave no matter how hard I tried to ask him to! OOH!! Iruka-sensei, you don't know this, but he's actually a cruel, selfish, red-eyed bastard who goes around killing villagers in the middle of the night!" He stuck his tongue out at Sasuke, who threw him a what-are-you-talking-about glare. "He was about to eat me for breakfast! That's why I had to use the Kage Bunshin to stop him! See? It was an emergency, Iruka-sensei!"
To Sasuke's horror, Iruka nodded at Naruto's absurd retelling of events. He was about to protest when Iruka said, "Thank you for your most compelling story, Naruto," he frowned through his smile when Naruto grinned at what he thought was a compliment, then reached out and whacked Naruto over the head, on the exact same spot Sasuke had been whacking prior, causing the blond to yell in pain and the Uchiha to chuckle. "I was not complimenting you, Naruto! And Sasuke!!" The Chuunin's attention turned to the raven-haired boy, who stiffened and looked up like with his best fearful schoolboy impersonation. Of course he knew it wouldn't work on the hardened teacher, who had seen all kinds of puppy-eyes there were out there, but he had to try anyway!
"Yes?" He managed to say, amidst fears that he was going to be skinned alive and hung upside down on the large oak tree outside - muscle, tendon and all, to dry while Iruka prepared a slow fire to roast him over. It wasn't impossible. He /had/ heard Iruka threaten to do that to Shikamaru once and he still shuddered at the flood of images it introduced to his imagination. He just hoped it wasn't as painful as it sounded.
"I wonder how /your/ version of story would sound like?" Iruka smiled sweetly and asked.
But Sasuke was not fooled. He had seen that smile and heard that sweet tone before, usually just prior to Iruka belting out punishments of various intensity to the class of wayward ninjas. He gulped and quickly responded, "I was passing by, sensei. Then all of a sudden there were two Jounin on my tail, screaming bloody murder for something I had no idea about. So I slipped into the only house along this stretch of road that seemed empty enough to hide. Hadn't counted on meeting an idiot, but that's besides the point. I can't go out now or I'll be caught and tortured for a crime I didn't know I did. But I did promise the moron I'd leave by tonight and not be of too much trouble, so please don't believe whatever he just said about me eating children for breakfast."
Iruka nodded and made a grunt of approval. He turned to Naruto, who was still rubbing the sore spot on his head and said, "Now that was at least believable. You should learn from Sasuke, Naruto!"
The blond boy stuck his tongue out to indicate what he thought about 'learning from Sasuke,' and Sasuke found himself privately amused at the action.
"But Iruka-sensei!" Naruto glanced around the room, then dived towards a stray page of newspaper, hurrying to pass it to Iruka while continuing, "Look at the picture! It really is him!"
Iruka took one look at the photograph, took another look at Sasuke, and delivered yet another whack upside the head to Naruto. "Are your eyes for decoration only, Naruto?! Look carefully at the picture! Do you think Sasuke has hair that long? Do you see the same sunken scars below the eyes on Sasuke? Can't you tell that this man's build and height is entirely different? What have I always told you about never believing what the tabloids print or say? Where have you /been/ when I taught you all these, Uzumaki Naruto?! For punishment," the Chuunin breathed, "you're going to run all the way to the village chief's house and borrow some salt from him!"
"EEEH!?" Naruto cried. "But the village chief lives on the /other/ side of the village! The marketplace is so much closer and it sells salt too! Why-"
"Enough questions!" Iruka roared and pointed at the door. "Do as I say or no ramen today!"
"YES, SIR!" The boy was out of the house in a whirl of yellow and orange before anyone could blink.
"And remember I want salt, not sugar!!!" Iruka continued to bellow at the rapidly vanishing figure of Naruto.
Sasuke realised after a while that he was gawking and gaping, and that gawking and gaping was rude but he just couldn't help it. It took a while before he noticed that Iruka had turned around and was looking at him, but when he did, he snapped to attention immediately and looked back, a bead of cold sweat rolling down his cheek.
"Sasuke," Iruka's tone was unflinching and unreadable. Sasuke cringed reflexively.
And as quickly as he had tensed, he relaxed, when Iruka broke into a warm, gentle smile.
"It's been a while."
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Kakashi and Itachi had joined Sasuke and Iruka at the table, where they had settled down upon in hopes of 'catching up' with one another. In reality, all that had happened was that they moved from a standing position to a sitting position. Nothing else was said except for a few cordial greetings about life and such, and the deathly hush threatened to drag on for a longer time had Kakashi not leapt onto the table and settled down as if to sleep there.
"Get off the table, Kakashi!" Iruka slapped the dog once on his hind thigh. The dog howled but refused to budge. Iruka was about to physically haul the dog off the table when Sasuke's sudden question stopped him.
"Is his name really Kakashi?"
The Chuunin paused to consider that question for a while. He laughed eventually and replied, "Oh, yes. I didn't believe it at first either, but that's what Naruto decided to name him. And before you ask, yes, the cat is Itachi."
Sasuke looked at his twiddling thumbs and huffed. "Only an idiot like him could have named his pets after S-class Nukenin."
"It's just a name," Iruka laughed, resignation evident in his tone. Then, in a more serious voice, he continued, "Sasuke - I hope you've not forgotten that you're a Nukenin too. I have every duty to apprehend and drag you back to the village myself, and I probably will try to do so - but I'm curious." He smiled reassuringly at Sasuke, who was growing paler and paler with every passing second, eyes darting about furtively as if for a place to hide. "You haven't changed much from since the Academy - and that means you're still a kind, gentle boy at heart. Why did you injure the ANBU and abandon the village? The committee are still trying to class your rank of crime, but seeing how you defeated the ANBU team with such ease..." Iruka shook his head. "I'm afraid you're on your way to becoming yet another one of Konoha's S-class Nukenin, Sasuke."
The Uchiha bit his lip nervously, noticing unhappily that Itachi the cat now sat beside him, looking up at him with eyes of curiosity. "I'm not abandoning the village, sensei," Sasuke began, "I tried to tell people that, but nobody would listen to me. Since nobody would give me permission to leave, then I thought I might as well just leave by myself. I hadn't counted on things becoming so big a deal, but I don't care. Nobody can stop me from doing what I want to do."
Iruka chuckled. "You can't blame the committee for being so cautious, Sasuke. The last thing they need after ten years of unease is yet another powerful Uchiha abandoning the village, after all."
Sasuke scoffed. "I've been stuck as a Chuunin for years, sensei," he reminded the man.
The Academy teacher looked amused. "Is that what this is all about?"
"Of course not!" Sasuke barked, then shrunk back into his seat, surprised at his own outburst. "Of course not..." he repeated, a little more subdued, but stubborn nonetheless. "I wanted to go look for Aniki... but nobody would give me permission. I tried for years to convince people that I was capable enough, but nobody gave a damn. They said... they actually said that the village was better off without powerful, S-class criminals like him. But!" Sasuke clenched his fists and his Sharingan swarmed out without him really realising it. "But Aniki wasn't! Aniki wasn't like that! Aniki had a bright future ahead of him... he wouldn't give it all up just like that! He was the obvious heir to the Uchiha Clan, he had everything and everybody for him! I... I didn't... I really didn't understand why." He sighed, unclenching his fists and looking away from his ex-teacher. "I looked up to him too. He was everything I ever wanted to be..."
Iruka had a look of sympathy across his face, and he couldn't help but say, "It must have been difficult for you."
Sasuke tensed visibly at those words. "That night when he left without a word?" He managed to smile thinly despite his rigidness. "He had promised me that he'd practice shuriken throwing with me the next morning. I waited the whole day for him to show up but he never did. Then I found out that he'd officially abandoned the village." The smile turned into a frown. "I didn't believe it. I still don't. There must be something... some reason behind his sudden departure. But nobody thought the same way I did. Even Father and Mother commented that Aniki had always been strange. So I thought I would find out and prove them all wrong, but..." He sighed and buried his face in his hands.
"But there was too much red tape to cut to get to that stage officially, right?" Iruka prompted. Sasuke nodded dumbly.
"I had to become ANBU before I could qualify for Oinin," the boy further clarified. "But the powers that be in the village just refused to let me rise to Jounin before I was 16. They said they didn't need anymore bigots flooding the ranks and then abandoning the village when it was convenient. They wouldn't listen to whatever I wanted to say, so finally," Sasuke looked up, and this time, straight at Iruka in the face, "I thought I'd submit my reason for departure, regardless of whether they approved or not, and leave the village on my own mission." A pause. "Sakura tried to dissuade me," the boy grudgingly admitted, looking back to the floor, "but nobody can stop me. I'll find Aniki if it's the last thing I do." He eyed his Academy teacher carefully. "And that means you too, sensei. I don't want to hurt you, so please don't-... try to stop me."
Iruka's eyes turned soft. "And what will you do," he asked quietly. "after you find him?"
"..." The boy was without speech for a while. "I don't know," he finally sighed. "I just... I just feel like it's the right thing to do. Aniki wasn't like that... wasn't like that at all." He bowed his head. "Maybe I'll know, when I eventually do find him, wherever he is, but now..."
The long, brooding silence that proceeded to hang above the duo, as they each got lost in their own thoughts, was broken only by the rambunctious shouting of the one and only Uzumaki Naruto.
The first indication that he was back was when loud, unabiding footsteps suddenly became clearer and clearer. Then the door swung noisily open and a blur of yellow ducked in. The next thing that happened was that a sack with the words 'SALT' marked clearly across in red landed with loud, sandy sounds on the table that Iruka and Sasuke were seated at, surprising them both. Then finally, Naruto's head popped out from behind the sack and he grinned. "Mission accomplished, Iruka-sensei! Enough salt to last us a lifetime! Then, then," he began bouncing excitedly around the oldest person in the room, "Does that mean I'll get a lifetime supply of ramen too? Will I? Will I?"
Iruka smiled and ruffled the boy's head. "I'll think about it!" He gave an encouraging pat. "But in the meantime, how about some miso ramen for lunch for all of us?"
"YES!!" Naruto leapt into the air and danced for joy. "Miso ramen, miso ramen!" He immediately dived into the kitchen in a whirlwind of activity, setting the kettle to boil and pulling assorted cutlery out from cabinets. Sasuke could feel his eyebrow twitching, even as he pointed and asked Iruka, "Why do you even bother?"
The Chuunin shrugged. "We all have different missions in life to complete, Sasuke," he put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "But before that, let's all have a nice meal together, eh? Can't do anything on an empty stomach, shinobi or not!" He grinned, removing his hand and heading in the direction of the kitchen to help Naruto out.
"Sensei," Sasuke blurted before Iruka completely vanished from sight. The man turned around questioningly, and Sasuke continued, "You still owe me an explanation for the real story behind this part of Konoha - and why that moron is so completely out of it." His eyes narrowed. "You /will/ tell me, won't you?"
Iruka's smile faltered, and he considered the situation carefully, waiting for a long time before replying, with a bitter-sweet smile, "I might, Sasuke - if you promise me something."
Taken in by the suspense, the boy arched an eyebrow expectantly.
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That night, Naruto and Sasuke were alone again, when Iruka left before dinner time and ordered them both to get along, or else! Neither boys wanted to test the theory behind the words, and had agreed very quickly with plastered smiles and happy waves.
They stood, shoulder to shoulder, staring down the path Iruka had last been walking in, long after they could no longer make out the vague shape of the Chuunin. Before he had left, Iruka had slipped a an envelope to Sasuke, exhorting him to read it only when he was alone and only when he felt he was ready to find out about a secret that would perhaps change his perspective of Konoha and life as a ninja considerably. He had kept it hidden in his sleeve and wondered if he really wanted to know.
"Hey, Sasuke," the subdued, awe-struck voice of Naruto brought him back from trying to make a tough decision, and he glanced questioningly at his counterpart. "Don't you just love sunsets?" The boy breathed, glancing at the large ball of orange light washing the surroundings anew with its soft, orange glow.
The raven-haired boy peered carefully at Naruto, decided that the boy was hardly joking, before admitting with a shrug, "I've never really stopped to take a good look at it."
"What?! No way!" Naruto turned to face Sasuke with shock. "Where have you been all your life to be missing out on sunsets?!"
The boy sighed. "I've been training and doing ninja stuff, obviously," he shook his head. "Things /you/ obviously are dying to want to do."
"Stop saying it like you think it's impossible!" Naruto flailed his arms wildly and screeched. "You're so going to be eating your words when I kick your ass!"
"With what, the Kage Bunshin again?" Sasuke snorted. "If you think it'll work against me for a second time, I'd advise you to think again."
"You're just saying it because you're unhappy you lost!" Naruto shouted in glee and made the hand seals without really thinking about it. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!!"
The lonely stretch of road leading to Naruto's house quickly began to fill up with multiple echos of Narutos getting beaten up and disappearing into puffs of smoke. The pseudo village was so used to the amount of noise coming from Naruto's house that it didn't bother them any more. In fact, it would have been scarier if there were no noise coming from Naruto's house.
Therefore, the duo spent the entire evening locked in uninterrupted combat, the conclusion of which was not reached until the moon hung shyly in the inky black skies, her twinkling friends clustering around her. Like an attentive audience, they cast their pearly white glows across the landscape, and in particular, upon a couple of teenagers who had yet to retire for the night in the safety of the house behind them. Currently, Naruto was lying face up and spread eagle on the grass of his backyard, panting and wheezing away, face dirtied and clothes in no better condition. Somewhere nearby, Sasuke stood impassively against the glow of the moonlight, breathing audibly but not as out of air as the blond was.
They were silent only for a while more, before Sasuke spoke up, "That was pretty good for someone who only knows one Jutsu," he calmly stated, ignoring the large grin on Naruto's face.
"Hahah!" Naruto was saying, amidst attempts to catch his breath, "I got the bastard to praise me! I'm good!! I'm the strongest!"
"Pah," Sasuke turned his head to one side. "Your measuring scale for strength must be really way out of tune. You can't even beat me one on one!"
"Are you trying to go back on your words, Sasuke?" There was a sly edge to Naruto's tone. "You /said/ I was good! Don't deny it! I heard it! Kakashi and Itachi heard it too, right? You guys heard it too, didn't you?" Naruto struggled onto his hands and knees and shot the observing animals a grin. They had been standing by the large oak tree, side by side, observing the fight from since it began.
Kakashi barked.
Itachi mewled.
"See? They heard it too, so you can't deny it, Sasuke! I'm good!" The boy was now up on his feet entirely, bouncing about to the sound of an inaudible victory anthem.
"Dammit! You knew better than to encourage the idiot!" Sasuke growled at the animals, who simply stared at him. "Ah man, what I am doing, talking to animals..." the boy caught onto his mouth with a hand and began walking towards the jubilant Naruto, who was still dancing away. As soon as he was out of sight and sound, Kakashi turned to Itachi and grinned his doggy grin again.
In response, Itachi slapped him with a kitty paw.
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"Naruto," Sasuke called out, when he decided that the blond was in hearing distance. The shorter boy stopped his flurry of movement and looked back at Sasuke when he heard his name.
"What?" He asked, when Sasuke took a little too long to respond.
The Uchiha cursed softly and looked away. He really wanted to walk away, but he could not go back upon what he had promised Iruka. This was such a bother. He hoped it was really worth his time. "Are you serious about becoming a ninja?"
The effect this question had on the boy was that of immediate silence. Naruto looked carefully at Sasuke with narrowed eyes, determination shining through his clear, blue irises. A cool, night breeze ran through the two of them, but neither responded to the chill, being too engrossed with trying to read each other's expressions instead. Finally, the blond quirked a smile and said, "I'm about as serious as you are on finding your brother, Sasuke."
The boy froze, then frowned with taut shoulders. "You heard." The tone was neither accusing nor threatening - a mere simple statement of fact.
Naruto grinned. He held out his thumb and index finger and said, "Only this much, though. Then I had to run a far distance away to barge in like the noisy idiot I am. Gotta maintain an image in front of Iruka-sensei, after all!"
Sasuke remained unamused. "Why bother if you have to go to such lengths?"
The grin on Naruto's face softened into a wistful smile. "I don't want Iruka-sensei to worry. He's always worrying over this and worrying over that. I don't think I want to one day find out that I've worried him to sickness over something. He's the only person who matters to me in this whole village. So if he feels more reassured when Naruto is happy and bouncing away, then I'll put up this act for all my life just to get him to not worry." The boy glanced up tentatively at the Uchiha, a look of doubt vaguely crossing over his features. "I don't care if you think I'm stupid or not, but don't you dare tell Iruka-sensei! I'll kill you! I swear I will!"
"I look forward to the day when you actually can," Sasuke drawled lazily, causing the unusually calm Naruto to quickly and rapidly return to his usually riled up moods. "You have most of the basics of chakra down pat, but you can't even use it into a proper Jutsu. Genjutsu and Ninjutsu aside, your Taijutsu sucks too." The teen shook his head. "I /really/ look forward to the day when you can actually say you tried to kill me."
"Argh! You selfish, arrogant, ego-bruising no-good bastard!" Naruto yelled, not caring if the entire village heard him or not. "It's your life mission to make me angry, isn't it?! It's your life mission to step on every single nerve I have left remaining after spending all my life in this sad excuse of a village of abuse, isn't it?! Crush whatever dinghy little hope I've had for acceptance since the day I was born; blow out any flame of existence I've been clutching on in these dark times... you just exist to make me feel bad, isn't that right, Uchiha Sasuke? I'm telling you I'm not gonna take your shit anymore than I have to so just PLEASE tell me why the hell are you being so holier-than-thou?! Or are you /always/ such a cactus? Do you live to hurt? Do you-"
"NARUTO!!" The blond was taken aback by the sudden facial close-up of the one Uchiha Sasuke, followed by a rough grab of the scruff of his collar, and boy did Sasuke look pissed. Still holding that pose, Sasuke snarled, "Will you just shut up and listen for a moment?!" He didn't wait for the blond's response, continuing quickly, "I really /do/ think you're a stupid moron who can't do anything right! And I really do want to make your life miserable because, oh hell, because /you/ get on /my/ nerves! If you got a problem with that, then too bad for you. The world doesn't bloody belong to you and you can be sure not everybody's going to be doing things the way you want them to. If you're going to react the way you do to me everytime you see someone like that, then you're going to lose your voice faster than I can say 'dead-last.' And when that day comes, I'll be laughing at you from wherever I may be at and popping confetti at your plight. Because you deserved it! Now get your head out of the well and look at reality, brainless!"
After his resounding speech, Sasuke released his hold on Naruto's collar and pushed the other, slightly stunned boy backwards. Naruto stumbled twice, then fell onto the ground in a sit, blinking in bright-eyed wonder.
The darker-haired boy immediately brought a hand up to cover his mouth, even as he looked away with stark surprise evident in his eyes. "Dammit, what the hell was I thinking, arguing with an idiot like that..." He stole a quick glance at Naruto, noticing that the boy had not moved from his position on the grass since stumbling onto it, and that he had not averted his eyes away from gaping at Sasuke either. "What?" The Uchiha asked with annoyance in his voice. "Cat got your tongue?"
The wide-eyed, wondering look on Naruto's face quickly dissolved and was replaced with a scowl. "Shut up, you!" Naruto growled, although Sasuke could not detect any real malice behind it. "Why are you still here? I thought you said you were leaving by tonight." The blond added, almost as an afterthought.
"I was going to, until I realised that I couldn't, if I wanted to keep my promise to someone we both know." The Uchiha gave a vague, all-encompassing, non-committal reply. This caused Naruto's head to tilt in confusion, but before the blond could say anything, Sasuke continued, "So are you serious about being a ninja anyway?"
"I already answered that, amnesiac-Sasuke," Naruto stuck his tongue out at his companion, who rolled his eyes and scoffed. The boy then used the pause to clamber slowly to his feet, dusting the soil and broken grass off his pants. "Why do you keep asking anyway?"
"It's your dream, right?" Sasuke mumbled half-heartedly. "We have to start from somewhere, I suppose..."
"Your words don't make any sense whatsoever, Sasuke," Naruto remarked blandly.
"Probably not to you," Sasuke shrugged and did not bother to explain. He then started heading back the direction of the house.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted for attention when Sasuke brushed by him without a word. "Hey hey hey!" He continued to shout, seeing how none of his solicitations for attention were getting any response. He turned and ran after the darker-haired boy quickly, pouting. "Does this mean you're going to continue leeching ramen off me?! Why the hell aren't you leaving? Come on, give me a straight, easy-to-understand answer! Sasuke!!"
The darker-haired teen stopped in mid-step and turned around to give Naruto a look of semi-veiled exasperation. "Because Iruka-sensei..." He was about to finish his sentence when a thought struck him and made him shut up. He looked to a side and frowned at his slip of tongue. That was really close!
"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto, however, was not about to let it go so easily. "What has Iruka-sensei got to do with any of this?" The blond had sounded offended. "Come on, don't just keep staring and holding your mouth with your hand! Talk to me, hey!"
Sasuke did remove his hand from his mouth, and he scowled angrily at the ball of blond energy beside him, waiting expectantly with uprised clenched fists and hunched shoulders for his response. He had never, ever, met a boy like that in his life before, and he hoped never, ever to meet someone like that again. This was impossible! What was Iruka-sensei thinking when he asked Sasuke for a favour like that?
"Listen idiot," Sasuke leaned in closer to the blond and narrowed his eyes, hoping to frighten him into a more submissive mood. Of course, trying to keep snowballs above a roaring campfire frozen might have been easier, for Naruto narrowed his eyes right back in defiance. Sasuke sighed inwardly. "Just think about it from my standpoint for a while if you can. There's a serial murderer on the loose, and he's killed tons of people in the past few years alone - enough to make any ANBU ashamed of themselves. He's managed to stay hidden from the villagers out for his blood for revenge so far, until finally, someone manages to take a picture of him. Said picture then gets splashed across the bulletin boards and papers. Now here comes the important part, listen carefully," Sasuke breathed, ignoring the hidden look of awe on Naruto's face.
"The damned bugger looks. Just. Like. Me! Me! An innocent passer-by! Me! Right down to the red Sharingan, too! So while I was trying to get myself a drink on a nearby road stall somebody sounded the alarm. Before I knew it, they've despatched two Jounins to pursue me, with lots more coming as reinforcement some time later. Now. Imagine for a moment you were me. You're running from some people who obviously won't hesitate to slaughter you on sight if you even resist. You dive into a house for sanctuary and miracles of miracles, manage to get some. Now..." Sasuke lifted a finger in a school-teacher way, much like how he saw Iruka used to always do in class to get the children's attention. "Will you leave immediately and attempt to go away, when security is tight and the people are edgy and on the lookout? Or would you rather stay for a while, until the tension eases and people no longer keep an active lookout for you to try to throw you into prison? Which would it be?"
"Of course I'll stay out of danger first!" Naruto folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes in exasperation. "Which moron would dive head first into danger and put his life on the line if he can solve it by simply waiting for the issue to pass over quietly? I know /I/ certainly won't!"
There was a short period of silence after Naruto's answer, during which Sasuke closely watched the boy for any indication that he had understood the problem at hand and was willing to give a helping hand. There was, unfortunately, none. Naruto stood in the same unbending pose and looked at Sasuke for a further debrief.
This time, Sasuke groaned aloud. He looked at Naruto seriously in the eye and said, "Do you really understand the role you're playing here, Naruto?"
Slightly thrown off track by the sudden question, Naruto unfolded his arms and let them drop to his side, while he blinked at Sasuke. "My role?" He repeated, not quite understanding.
"I agree with you that it would be suicidal to be running around so soon again after the villagers were out for my blood," Sasuke slowly started again. "Therefore the best solution is to lie low until the situation blows over, right?" He waited for Naruto's response, which came in the form of a nod. "Where do you think I can 'lie low' in, seeing that I don't live in this part of the village, neither do I have friends here?"
"No shit about that you anti-social megalomaniac," Naruto replied instantly, still looking at Sasuke in the eye. "And as for lying low, that's easy! You can stay at my house, right? You've been staying at my house all this time, though that doesn't necessarily mean I like it any better than you do...- oh, wait. Oh. Oooooh." The light finally dawned upon the blond and he stepped one small step backwards with soft gasps of revelation.
The raven-haired boy did not bother to rub it in this time, choosing instead to ask, "You said it yourself lying low is the best solution. The problem is, however, that I need your cooperation. I hope I don't need to elaborate anymore than that. You have the final say, Naruto. This is your house, after all."
There was a tone of finality in Sasuke's voice, even as his mind raced to form contingency plans for what he knew was an inevitable boot out of his present sanctuary by Naruto. They hadn't exactly started off on the right foot, after all, and they had only known each other for a day. Naruto doubtlessly still harboured suspicions about Sasuke's innocence, as he had boldly declared time and again.
And Sasuke noticed that as he pondered his thoughts over and over again, Naruto remained an expressionless lump of human flesh staring at him without moving in the slightest bit. The Uchiha sighed. "Whatever it is, I just wanted to say thanks for putting up with me for a night and a day. I hope you'll manage to fulfill your drea-"
His well-wishes were curtailed when Naruto's hands shot out and grabbed him by the dark fabric of his shirt, pulling him slightly closer. Giving a small yelp of protest, Sasuke quickly found himself staring into the clear, blue eyes of an innocent, expectant child. These were the eyes of a child trapped in a world of apathy for so long that very few things had mattered anymore. A child whose eyes reflected the fierce protectiveness of an adult, but also the pure emotions of inexperience. Right now, this child was open and unguarded - he had something on his mind and a question on his lips that would make or break. Clutching the dark-haired ninja's shirt tighter, Naruto mouthed quietly, "Do you mean it?"
"M-mean what? Sasuke stuttered slightly under the strong look Naruto was throwing in his direction at a close distance.
"That you..." Naruto continued, eyes steely yet frightened at the same time. "... That you need my cooperation... that... that I'm needed to help you... help you... that I'm needed?" The boy's determination to remain calm and composed wavered at his final words.
Sasuke stared for a moment, then shrugged himself free from Naruto's grasp. "I don't know what you're getting so amazed at about," he flatly commented, dusting the front of his shirt in an attempt to distract himself from his heart, still rapidly beating at the close encounter just now. "But just in case your dumb retard ears didn't hear it right the first time..."
He breathed.
"... I'm on the run for a crime I didn't do. I swear I'm not trying to kill anyone, nor am I trying to kill you. All I want to do is to cross the borders of the Fire country in one piece - hopefully not battered or bleeding in five or six places either, and that means I don't want any trouble. So I need your cooperation and your help to house me until the storm tides over. It seems like the most logical choice of action at the moment, but I'll be damned if I had to force you to agree to help me. That would probably mean I'd have to bind and gag you and sweep you under your bed or something. I think I'll feel better if I'd just ran out and risk getting caught if I had to stoop to /that/ level. And STOP gaping at me like that, you insufferable dimwit!" Sasuke finally shouted and used a finger to tap lightly at Naruto's vulnerable forehead. "I'm going now, okay?" The dark-haired shinobi sighed and turned, ready to disappear into the night.
That is, until he noticed that he couldn't, when Naruto had a grip on his wrist as tight as that.
"Oh no you don't," the sly grin was back in full force on Naruto's face, his previously deer-in-headlights expression disappearing into the vortext that was his stomach. Probably. "You come and disrupt my life for one whole day and night, and then you're gonna go away just like that?" There was something in the way Naruto had said the sentence that made Sasuke's hair stand on ends. "I don't think so, buster," the blond continued, and then quickly turned to the direction of his house, walking towards it, Sasuke's hand still in his grab.
"Hey, wait-" Sasuke stumbled at the sudden pull but caught himself before he tripped. "What are you doing, moron?!"
"Going home, stupid. Can't you tell?"
"I can /see/ that very well, dimwit. Why the hell are you dragging me along then?"
"Isn't that obvious? Because you're coming with me!"
Silence.
"/What??!/"
"Oh for crying out loud, stop whining like a little girl, Sasuke! Or would you /really/ rather I boot you out and you face the wrath of the council waiting to skin you alive and shred your flesh into little shreds while you watch on?"
"... no?"
"Then shut up and just follow me."
Another silence.
"Why are you helping me?"
The sounds of moving feet shuffled to a stop.
Naruto looked up at the taller boy and grinned. Framed by the soft luminance of the moon, his face almost looked angelic. That was of course, until he spoke up.
"Because you still owe me one. And the last time I did any spring cleaning was three years ago."
The footsteps resumed walking.
Painful silence.
"... /I see./"
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"Be his friend, please?" Iruka smiled, while holding the envelope which he had slipped his narrative in between his fingers.
Sasuke eyed the envelope cautiously, then blinked at the request. "Pardon me?" He eventually managed.
"It's not as easy as it looks, Sasuke," Iruka's smile turned sad. "But if you do as I say, I'll not only tell you what I know - I'll even let you leave the village and pretend I never saw or heard anything." He beamed. "Good deal?"
Noticing the hesitation in Sasuke's eyes, Iruka boldly stepped towards the younger ninja and lifted a hand of the boy, placing the envelope firmly into his palms.
"It's not as easy as it looks, Sasuke," the ponytailed man repeated, this time with a stern countenance. "How many true friends have you ever had? Whom you could trust with your life? Trust with your darkest secrets?" He noticed the boy tense, and so shot him a reassuring smile. "If even for a boy like you an answer is so difficult, then..." The man looked once, wistfully, in the direction of the kitchen, where sounds of Naruto tussling with the cutlery could be heard. The trailing sentence never saw a completion, for he next said, "It's always better to have someone your age to share woe and weal with. Sasuke," a warm hand rested on the Uchiha's shoulder. "Treat it as a challenge, if you must."
The boy narrowed his eyes in confusion at his former Academy teacher, even as Iruka took a few steps backwards to come in full view of his former student. The Chuunin smiled.
"Be his friend, please?"
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Part 3 of 7
17/5/2004
tougenkyou . net / xd
Warnings: Eventual fluffy friendship between the boys. Do not read if thou art not a fan of fluff!
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Crossroads of Life
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Chapter Two
Sasuke sat on one of the only two chairs in the room. He took much care to make sure that this was the more comfortable one. There was now proper light filtering through the window, so he stared blankly at the little house, scratching his tousled head with sleepiness.
Last night had been a living nightmare. The little rascal by the name of Uzumaki Naruto kept him awake the whole time, blabbering on and on about life the way he viewed it and the people in this section of Konoha like it was the only thing he ever knew in his whole life. Everytime Sasuke thought the blond had run out of things to say, he would suddenly unleash a new barrage of descriptions and narratives and launch into yet another pseudo rant.
The scariest part of it all was that, Sasuke actually deigned himself to respond.
Sometimes it would be just a word or two, when Sasuke felt the need to break the dull monotony of Naruto's constant chatter. Most of the time, though, it was either a full-scale jibe at the blond's rather scary lack of knowledge of chakra and ninja despite his excellent control, or a massive, scathing argument about who had the most creative way of name-calling.
Then at dawn, Naruto suddenly stood up with a strange glint in his eye, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bucket of something and ran out of the house, not even casting a glance back.
Sasuke thought he would welcome the sudden departure of the noisy boy, and could now concentrate on trying to find a way to avoid the high-level guards that had most certainly have placed on every checkpoint and along the borders. He realised unhappily though, that he was 1) hungry, 2) sleepy and 3) unable to think because it was now /too/ quiet. When Naruto returned, and if he dared say anything more, he was so going to drown the blond's head in the sink - nevermind whose house this was.
He decided to tackle the problems one by one.
Sasuke's Current Priority List
01) Get out of Konoha Forest.
02) Get food.
03) Get sleep.
04) Get job.
05) Get trained.
06) Get aniki!
The dark-haired boy pondered for a while, then added,
07) And maybe thank Naruto. If boy stops being such a prick.
After a brief runthrough of his priorities in his head, Sasuke nodded to himself, pleased with his evaluation. He then looked around for something to help him achieve his first priority of escaping the village.
Naruto's living room, Sasuke noticed, was also his bedroom. Nevertheless, it was a large room, able to hold a bed, a fireplace, a store of sorts, several shelves of books and scrolls, as well as a rather large table and a couple of chairs. Not bad at all. Noticing a transmitter radio on the far side of one of the shelves, he cautiously reached for it.
It was an old model, perhaps popular a decade or so back. Seeing how it was covered with dust, Sasuke wondered if Naruto even knew of the existence of the radio. Shrugging, he cocked the volume as quietly as he could and listened to the news for today.
"pop crack sizzle... that the murderer with red eyes has been identified- static-Uchiha clan-pop popcrackle-no efforts are being spared to- hiss hiss pop -all borders are being secured... -hiss-any information, pleasssss do not hesssssitate to -THWAMP-"
Unable to bear the drone and static for too long, Sasuke shut the radio up by slapping it against the table. He stared at the thing and sighed inwardly. It was just as he had expected. If he tried to make his way out with Genjutsu, he would definitely be discovered by the shinobi currently guarding the village boundaries. Looks like he had to lie low for a while.
And that officially brought him to priority two. Food. Looking up, he was instantly taken aback to find himself staring into a pair of bemused, blue eyes. With a yelp he tumbled ungracefully backwards along with the chair, recognising the background noise to be that of Naruto laughing only a while later, when he stopped seeing the stars orbiting his head.
Sitting up and holding his spinning head, he glared at Naruto angrily. "What was that for?!" He demanded, realising belatedly that he had not even felt Naruto's presence. This boy's chakra control was truly beyond good.
"Noooothing, bastard," Naruto stuck his tongue out, disappearing into the kitchen to put the bucket of paint away. He had grafitti'ed the houses of two art galleries, hosed down the straw roof of a flower nursery and cracked a few holes in the window of the school he was never allowed to enroll for. Some of the children had complained to him that the teachers were evil, cane-twisting, telephone book-tearing maniacs anyway. All in a good day's work!
Sauntering out, he noted that Sasuke was staring with interest at the various scrolls in the shelves - scrolls he had never had any use for. He briefly glanced around and was disappointed to see that neither Kakashi nor Itachi had returned yet. "Hey Sasuke," he called out, and the other boy turned to look at him questioningly. "Did you see a silver dog or a black cat around while I was gone?"
The other boy blinked, then slowly shook his head.
"Hmmm..." The boy turned his attention away and pouted. "... They're usually not this late... Don't tell me they've really killed each other? That can't be... Hmmm..."
"Hey," Sasuke's sharp, slightly annoyed voice caused Naruto to look up. "Do all these scrolls," the Uchiha gestured to the shelf behind him, "belong to you?"
"Does it look like there's someone else in the house it could belong to?" Naruto complained. "I thought you were smarter than that."
This time, instead of a smartass reply, all Naruto got was a strange stare from Sasuke.
"Stop staring at me like that," the blond shivered purposely. "You're creeping me out."
Sasuke did look away, but only after staring for a while more. "Naruto," he began, "let me ask you again. Are you a ninja?"
"Huh?"
"Don't ask me questions back, don't make stupid /I'm not a ninja but I'm gonna be one/ statements. Just answer me," Sasuke folded his arms across his chest and glanced at the boy seriously.
"I... ugh..." Unable to anticipate what Sasuke wanted to do with the information, Naruto bit his lower lip and looked away. "No. I'm not."
"Do you know anybody who is, then?"
"No... oh wait, I know you're a ninja!"
Eye roll. "Besides me."
A pout. "No, then."
"What about the person who gave you all these scrolls?"
"Iruka-sensei? Nah, he's just a merchant! He uses these scrolls to teach me how to read!"
"... Iruka-sensei?"
"Yeah!" Naruto bounced about happily, "He's the best! He's the only one who treats me like a human around here! Everybody else thinks I'm some jinx or monster!" The boy continued, still with the happy grin, as if being ostracised did not bother him at all.
And to that, Sasuke rose an eyebrow inquisitively. Although he was in a rush to escape from the riot that was the search party yesterday night, he did overhear a rather unjustified argument between Naruto and the searchers. He had just about convinced himself that he was in the house of a terrible criminal when Naruto shrieked at him in the dark, bringing down any possibility of /that/ being true.
He had been wondering, but could find no real resolution. Perhaps he would be better off asking questions, which he did, saying the first thing that came to his mind, "Why do they hate you so much?"
"I'll be damned if I knew," Naruto snorted and turned his head away. "It's been like that since I could remember. Better not ask questions anymore, and just deal them the same hand they deal me!" The blond grinned, this time in a determined manner.
After a short silence, Sasuke probed, "Is that why you went out so early this morning?"
"Of course!" Naruto said in glee. "Nothing beats grafitti'ing the gallery windows with paint at the break of dawn!"
The other boy shot him an incredulous look. "And you wonder why people hate you?"
Naruto paused in his reverie and pointed rudely at Sasuke, growling unhappily, "Shut up, you! What do you know about me?! They've hated me long before I started playing pranks on them! And why do you care anyway? Speaking of you, you're going to leave today, right?" The blond paused with a semi-scowl, semi-pout on his face. "Have you figured out how to do it yet? The whole town is on red alert looking for you when I went out just now. All the gates are heavily guarded and there are scary people patrolling the streets, picking on anyone who even has black hair. I'll be damned if you don't get thrown into prison the very moment you step out my house!"
"I knew that, dimwit," Sasuke shrugged indifferently. He removed himself from his spot in front of the shelves, casting one final glance at it before walking towards the door and peering out. "Maybe it'll be a bit dangerous to move around in broad daylight. I'm going to try to sneak away in the night instead." He looked away from the door to find Naruto staring at him with a hard frown on his face, suspicion clear in his features. He sighed. "What is it /now/, idiot?"
Choosing to ignore that stab at his intelligence, Naruto pointed at the dark-haired teen, saying, "You really did kill those people, didn't you?"
"Oh, for crying out loud," Sasuke buried his face in his hands for a brief moment. As soon as he emerged back into the open he threw Naruto a look of disdain and mumbled, "Just believe what you want to believe, but you'll be rid of me before long, so enjoy your taunting while it lasts."
"But you do look like that guy!" Naruto whined, bouncing up towards Sasuke to get a better look. "Okay, except that you can change your eye colour whenever you feel like it. But still!"
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Sasuke raised a hand and whacked Naruto across the back of his head continually. "There're a lot of people," Whack! "... who look alike in this world!" Whack! "Just too bad for me I had to look like some S-class criminal," Whack! "... hiding his life away in this small suburb," Whack! "... is that what you mean?"
In reply, Naruto swatted Sasuke's hands away angrily and growled. "I wasn't kidding! You're not taking me seriously, are you?! You really do look like him! If I were any of the villagers I would've screamed when I saw you too, especially since your photograph just came out on the papers yesterday night!"
While Naruto had been busy with his large, sweeping gestures, Kakashi sauntered in from the front door, a wad of rolled up newspapers clamped tightly in between his mouth. He stopped just in front of the surprised Sasuke, tilting his head and wagging his tail. The young Uchiha wondered briefly how a dog could reflect such amusement in its eyes, before Naruto's loud voice came into the picture again.
"Yes! That's the one!" The blond loudmouth was saying. "Great job, Kakashi! Now give him the paper and show him what I mean!"
"... Kakashi?" The raven-haired boy's eyes hardened slightly, and immediately the Sharingan bled into sight. Naruto gave a yelp of surprise at the deliberate act and jumped backwards, although Kakashi remained where he was seated in front of Sasuke, still wagging his tail like a loyal puppy should and tilting his head to a side in mock wonder.
After several careful, searching Sharingan scrutinies, Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes, willing the bloodline limit skill away. He opened his eyes to suddenly realise that Naruto had backed into the furthest corner of the room from him, and that made him frown. "What do you think you're doing /now/?"
"But you!" Naruto protested immediately, "Your eyes! Red! Glowing, murderous, bloody red! I thought you were going to eat me up like all the other guys you already ate!"
"I do not eat people!" Sasuke bellowed in exasperation. Then in a smaller voice, added, "And even if I did I wouldn't eat an idiot like you."
"Argh! I heard that!" Naruto screeched, still from the far end. "And why the hell did you do that anyway?! I think you're much more likeable with normal eyes than with funny eyes."
"Well, excuse me!" Sasuke shot back, realising he had to shout, since Naruto was at a very far distance apart. "Which idiot names his dog after an S-class Nukenin? Of course it's better to be safe than sorry! And come back here, you! The rate we're shouting the whole village is going to find out that I'm here before the morning finishes!"
Naruto did eventually patter gingerly back closer to Sasuke, and kept alarmingly quiet while he was at it. At the same time, Sasuke had gotten himself into a tug-of-war with Kakashi on the newspaper the dog had in his mouth. So engrossed he was trying to death-glare the mutt into giving up that he almost missed Naruto's soft question.
"Nukenin? What's that?"
Almost jumping out of his skin, Sasuke let go of his hold on the newspaper in shock and almost stumbled into the sharp end of the table behind him. He stopped himself just in time and breathed to calm himself down. "I told you to stop that!" He snapped at Naruto, who was oblivious to the malice behind the tone, having been the target of much worse speech. The blond simply grinned and stuck his tongue out.
"I wasn't doing it on purpose, stupid," he stated matter-of-factly, "And Kakashi is Kakashi! What else should I name him? What is this Nukenin thing you were talking about anyway?"
As if in response, Kakashi barked once, and the papers he held clamped in his mouth rolled messily onto the floor.
Then he proceeded to slobber Sasuke, before the boy could dignify Naruto with a response.
"Uwaaah!!" The morose teen swat at the silver dog. "Naruto, stop laughing and get your stupid dog off me before I really kill you!"
The threat, of course, flew over Naruto's head.
"But he loves you!" Naruto managed to say in between guffaws. "Kakashi hardly ever slobbers anyone else, so you should feel honoured!"
Stuck between wanting to shoot a reply and trying to pry Kakashi's paw off his face, Sasuke settled for a grunt of disapproval. Can't have all the passers-by running down to the house because he was making too much noise now, can he?
Eventually, after Naruto had enough fun making fun of Sasuke, he commanded, "Okay, Kakashi, I think that's about enough."
That one sentence was all Naruto needed to back to zealous mutt away, and Sasuke scrambled as far as he could from the dog as he possibly could. He was still trying to get rid of the extra drool on his face when Naruto sat down beside him with a loud plop.
The darker-haired teen stared questioningly at his companion, who grinned and held up a full page newspaper article in his face. "See this, see this?" The blond pointed randomly. "That's you on the page, isn't it?"
Sasuke had to lean further out to be able to properly look at whatever Naruto was so excitedly trying to show him. Sharingan or not, you just couldn't read anything that was barely a centimetre away from your eyes! When he did, however, his exasperation turned into cold, chilling shock. He quickly snatched the page away from Naruto and stared hard at it as he held it in his own hands, not realising that they were trembling.
After dissecting and concluding whatever he may from the blurry picture, Sasuke proceeded to read the article in full, not pausing to even acknowledge Naruto, who had been chattering by his ear to no avail. Eventually realising this himself, Naruto snorted and turned to Kakashi instead. "So you guys didn't kill each other. Phew! Where's Itachi, anyway?"
Sasuke's head shot up straight upon hearing that word. "Itachi?!" He gave a clear cry of disbelief, the news in his hands long forgotten. "He's here? Where is he?! Tell me!"
Shocked by Sasuke's sudden outburst, Naruto was unsure of what to say in reply. Before either of the humans could take another blink, however, the door slowly and gently swung open, to reveal the sleek-furred black cat sauntering his way into the room, not even turning an eye to glance at the scene. He did, however, stop in front of Sasuke and took a few experimental sniffs at his toes. Then, as if on a whim, he rubbed once against the boy's ankle and then disappeared into the kitchen.
Sasuke turned to Naruto for an explanation, and the blond grinned. "That," he pointed in the general direction of the kitchen, "was Itachi."
After a short pause, Sasuke slumped his shoulders in defeat. "I give up. Please tell me you don't also have a hamster called Orochimaru." He glanced up at the wide-eyed look on Naruto's face and gasped. "No... you /do/ have a hamster called Orochimaru!?"
"NO!" Naruto's horrified answer seemingly appeased the nearly petrified Sasuke. "Orochimaru is such a sucky name! And what's so wrong with Kakashi or Itachi anyway?"
"Nothing, moron, except that they're both names of S-class Nukenin who abandoned the village at around the same time!" The raven-haired boy shook his head, and beside him, Kakashi shook his head in mock imitation as well. "I'm surprised no one's tried any dispelling Jutsu on them yet."
The blond was rendered silent yet again, as Sasuke frowned at the entity of silver fur beside him, possibly wondering if he should activate his Sharingan to check again, just to be sure.
Finally, Naruto asked quietly, "This 'Nukenin' thingie you keep talking about... do you mean like, ninjas who have abandoned their loyalties or something? That's why they're 'Abandoners?'"
Sasuke took a break from staring in distrust at Kakashi to look in Naruto's direction. "Something like that," he gruffly replied, then added quickly, "Or they could have been ninjas who left their villages for their own personal reasons. Whether or not the committee thinks their reason to be justified is another matter altogether, of course."
"Ooh..." Naruto's eyes were brimming with curiosity. "That's so cool and everything!"
Sasuke shot Kakashi a warning glare when he saw the dog about to jump on him to maul him again, then said to Naruto, "How can you not know about these things when you're living here?"
"Well excuse me, genius," Naruto pouted angrily at the taller boy, "It's not like we have ninjas walking around here every day, you know?"
Sasuke blinked in genuine surprise at Naruto's words, then simmered down before he asked anything else. This was too strange, even for him. It was like Naruto lived in another world altogether. Perhaps he would have more time to figure it out later, but right now, his priority was getting out fast, and without being noticed. "Whatever," he rolled his eyes to indicate that he wanted to give no more thought about the entire ninja fiasco. "Since you have better knowledge of this area than I do, care to tell me what you think my chances for getting out without getting caught are?"
In the meantime, Naruto had gotten hold of the newspapers which Sasuke had not finished reading and was staring at the picture, then at Sasuke. "You sure you're not this guy in the pic?" He asked tentatively, pointing at the grainy photograph.
Sasuke sighed loudly. "Do you want me to be?" He asked pointedly.
"Of course not!" Naruto's response was lightning fast.
"Then why do you keep asking?!"
"I just wanted to make sure that I'm not letting a murderer stay in my house! I don't wanna die before I become the strongest ninja in the world!"
"Hah."
"Whaat?! What was that sound of disbelief there, Sasuke?! You don't believe that I meant what I said?" Naruto angrily confronted his companion, who smirked and crossed his arms.
"Not like that you're not," Sasuke taunted. "What do you know besides chakra control? None, right? The strongest ninja in the world must know up to thousands of Jutsu, and they need to have trained from a very young age to acquire mastery of those skills. Anyway I see it, you don't seem to qualify. How do you propose on becoming the strongest with just one or two Jutsu, even if you do have excellent chakra control?"
All the time Sasuke spoke, Naruto listened with clenched fists. Nobody had /ever/ dissed his dream before. True, the lack of reaction on the villagers' part was probably because they didn't care any two way about it. But Naruto had slowly began to associate that sort of reaction with grudging recognition, and he hung on to it like a lifeline. Now, suddenly, without warning, there was this stranger, who could very well be a murderer, who stood by the inner walls of his house and callously dismissed Naruto's carefully built up walls like they never existed in the first place.
Naruto was pissed.
And for the first time in his life,
felt very alive.
"I may only know one Jutsu," the trembling voice of the blond drifted into the Uchiha's ears, and he tensed at the sudden influx of strange chakra he could feel vibrating from Naruto. "But it's more than enough," he looked up, a fierce, determined grin plastered on his face, "to deal with a ball of slime like you!"
Sasuke opened his mouth to protest, but was drowned out by the enigmatic words that followed.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
True to Naruto's predictions, one Jutsu was truly all that was needed to defeat Sasuke. It was very hard to win, after all, if you had 50 clones of the exact same person stacked ceiling high against the one of you. Whether you were shinobi or not did not matter. Sasuke was still cursing and swearing at Naruto with all the most creative names he could think of when a familiar sounding voice cut through their tirade.
"NARUTO!!!!"
Both Naruto and Sasuke paused and turned to look at the entrance of the house, where a dark silouette against with the full glories of the morning sun spilling into the room from behind him. Naruto gulped and looked frightened, whereas all Sasuke could do was wince at the sunlight. Now where had he heard that voice before?
He found out before long, for Iruka stormed into the house with a vein threatening to burst from his forehead, promptly grabbing the real Naruto from amongst all his clones and pulling at his cheeks. "You fool! How many times do I have to tell you to get it through that thick head of yours that you CANNOT pull a Jutsu unless in absolutely emergencies?! What if it was someone else who was walking about? Do you know what you have done?!"
"But... but Iruka-sensei..." Naruto managed in between wheezes of air, "... it /was/ an emergency! I was trying to chase a stupid cockroach out of my house! The situation called for it!"
"A gazillion clones for a single cockroach?!" Iruka continued to pull at the blond's cheeks, wider this time. "I'd like to see how /big/ this cockroach is exactly to need such an amount!"
"Don't listen to the idiot, Iruka-sensei," a strangely familiar, yet dark and foreboding voice halted Iruka from torturing Naruto any further. The academy teacher cum spy on a mission looked downwards to see an unhappy looking Sasuke, stacked against the floor with countless Naruto clones, staring at him unhappily. "I'm not a cockroach. So please ask this moron to get his equally moronic doubles off me?" Sasuke continued smoothly, when he was sure he had Iruka's full attention.
Naruto's desperate and frantic yelling was all that was really keeping Iruka from just fainting there and then on the spot.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Several cups of hot, scalding, boiled water later (Naruto hardly stocked tea, after all), Iruka slammed his mug onto the wooden table and eyed the two younglings before him with his best school-teacher, accusing look.
Naruto tried very hard not to burst into tears there and then, whereas Sasuke was looking at anything but at Iruka in the face. Kakashi and Itachi were standing somewhere near the kitchen doorway, looking on at the scene with great interest.
After a few mind-numbing seconds later, Iruka rose to full height slowly and deliberately. He circled the duo carefully, still looking at them with clear disapproval. It was almost hypnotical, and to Sasuke, this was a familiar movement. He'd seen Iruka do it in class so often that he could more or less mimick the action already. What he had never expected, however, was that he would one day be the target of this intense scrutiny - outside of the Academy, too. He winced, not daring to move too much for fear of being swallowed whole by the teacher. Adults were scary!
The raven-haired boy almost breathed a sigh of relief when Iruka's attention settled eventually on the blond beside him. "Naruto," the Chuunin was saying, reprimanding tone evident. "Maybe /you/ would like to tell me what was happening between the two of you before I came?"
"It wasn't my fault!" Was Naruto's immediate response, causing Sasuke to wince further. He briefly wondered if Naruto was deaf to shout so loudly all the time, before finding himself the target of a Naruto Finger Point. "This bastard here snuck into my house in the middle of the night and wouldn't leave no matter how hard I tried to ask him to! OOH!! Iruka-sensei, you don't know this, but he's actually a cruel, selfish, red-eyed bastard who goes around killing villagers in the middle of the night!" He stuck his tongue out at Sasuke, who threw him a what-are-you-talking-about glare. "He was about to eat me for breakfast! That's why I had to use the Kage Bunshin to stop him! See? It was an emergency, Iruka-sensei!"
To Sasuke's horror, Iruka nodded at Naruto's absurd retelling of events. He was about to protest when Iruka said, "Thank you for your most compelling story, Naruto," he frowned through his smile when Naruto grinned at what he thought was a compliment, then reached out and whacked Naruto over the head, on the exact same spot Sasuke had been whacking prior, causing the blond to yell in pain and the Uchiha to chuckle. "I was not complimenting you, Naruto! And Sasuke!!" The Chuunin's attention turned to the raven-haired boy, who stiffened and looked up like with his best fearful schoolboy impersonation. Of course he knew it wouldn't work on the hardened teacher, who had seen all kinds of puppy-eyes there were out there, but he had to try anyway!
"Yes?" He managed to say, amidst fears that he was going to be skinned alive and hung upside down on the large oak tree outside - muscle, tendon and all, to dry while Iruka prepared a slow fire to roast him over. It wasn't impossible. He /had/ heard Iruka threaten to do that to Shikamaru once and he still shuddered at the flood of images it introduced to his imagination. He just hoped it wasn't as painful as it sounded.
"I wonder how /your/ version of story would sound like?" Iruka smiled sweetly and asked.
But Sasuke was not fooled. He had seen that smile and heard that sweet tone before, usually just prior to Iruka belting out punishments of various intensity to the class of wayward ninjas. He gulped and quickly responded, "I was passing by, sensei. Then all of a sudden there were two Jounin on my tail, screaming bloody murder for something I had no idea about. So I slipped into the only house along this stretch of road that seemed empty enough to hide. Hadn't counted on meeting an idiot, but that's besides the point. I can't go out now or I'll be caught and tortured for a crime I didn't know I did. But I did promise the moron I'd leave by tonight and not be of too much trouble, so please don't believe whatever he just said about me eating children for breakfast."
Iruka nodded and made a grunt of approval. He turned to Naruto, who was still rubbing the sore spot on his head and said, "Now that was at least believable. You should learn from Sasuke, Naruto!"
The blond boy stuck his tongue out to indicate what he thought about 'learning from Sasuke,' and Sasuke found himself privately amused at the action.
"But Iruka-sensei!" Naruto glanced around the room, then dived towards a stray page of newspaper, hurrying to pass it to Iruka while continuing, "Look at the picture! It really is him!"
Iruka took one look at the photograph, took another look at Sasuke, and delivered yet another whack upside the head to Naruto. "Are your eyes for decoration only, Naruto?! Look carefully at the picture! Do you think Sasuke has hair that long? Do you see the same sunken scars below the eyes on Sasuke? Can't you tell that this man's build and height is entirely different? What have I always told you about never believing what the tabloids print or say? Where have you /been/ when I taught you all these, Uzumaki Naruto?! For punishment," the Chuunin breathed, "you're going to run all the way to the village chief's house and borrow some salt from him!"
"EEEH!?" Naruto cried. "But the village chief lives on the /other/ side of the village! The marketplace is so much closer and it sells salt too! Why-"
"Enough questions!" Iruka roared and pointed at the door. "Do as I say or no ramen today!"
"YES, SIR!" The boy was out of the house in a whirl of yellow and orange before anyone could blink.
"And remember I want salt, not sugar!!!" Iruka continued to bellow at the rapidly vanishing figure of Naruto.
Sasuke realised after a while that he was gawking and gaping, and that gawking and gaping was rude but he just couldn't help it. It took a while before he noticed that Iruka had turned around and was looking at him, but when he did, he snapped to attention immediately and looked back, a bead of cold sweat rolling down his cheek.
"Sasuke," Iruka's tone was unflinching and unreadable. Sasuke cringed reflexively.
And as quickly as he had tensed, he relaxed, when Iruka broke into a warm, gentle smile.
"It's been a while."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Kakashi and Itachi had joined Sasuke and Iruka at the table, where they had settled down upon in hopes of 'catching up' with one another. In reality, all that had happened was that they moved from a standing position to a sitting position. Nothing else was said except for a few cordial greetings about life and such, and the deathly hush threatened to drag on for a longer time had Kakashi not leapt onto the table and settled down as if to sleep there.
"Get off the table, Kakashi!" Iruka slapped the dog once on his hind thigh. The dog howled but refused to budge. Iruka was about to physically haul the dog off the table when Sasuke's sudden question stopped him.
"Is his name really Kakashi?"
The Chuunin paused to consider that question for a while. He laughed eventually and replied, "Oh, yes. I didn't believe it at first either, but that's what Naruto decided to name him. And before you ask, yes, the cat is Itachi."
Sasuke looked at his twiddling thumbs and huffed. "Only an idiot like him could have named his pets after S-class Nukenin."
"It's just a name," Iruka laughed, resignation evident in his tone. Then, in a more serious voice, he continued, "Sasuke - I hope you've not forgotten that you're a Nukenin too. I have every duty to apprehend and drag you back to the village myself, and I probably will try to do so - but I'm curious." He smiled reassuringly at Sasuke, who was growing paler and paler with every passing second, eyes darting about furtively as if for a place to hide. "You haven't changed much from since the Academy - and that means you're still a kind, gentle boy at heart. Why did you injure the ANBU and abandon the village? The committee are still trying to class your rank of crime, but seeing how you defeated the ANBU team with such ease..." Iruka shook his head. "I'm afraid you're on your way to becoming yet another one of Konoha's S-class Nukenin, Sasuke."
The Uchiha bit his lip nervously, noticing unhappily that Itachi the cat now sat beside him, looking up at him with eyes of curiosity. "I'm not abandoning the village, sensei," Sasuke began, "I tried to tell people that, but nobody would listen to me. Since nobody would give me permission to leave, then I thought I might as well just leave by myself. I hadn't counted on things becoming so big a deal, but I don't care. Nobody can stop me from doing what I want to do."
Iruka chuckled. "You can't blame the committee for being so cautious, Sasuke. The last thing they need after ten years of unease is yet another powerful Uchiha abandoning the village, after all."
Sasuke scoffed. "I've been stuck as a Chuunin for years, sensei," he reminded the man.
The Academy teacher looked amused. "Is that what this is all about?"
"Of course not!" Sasuke barked, then shrunk back into his seat, surprised at his own outburst. "Of course not..." he repeated, a little more subdued, but stubborn nonetheless. "I wanted to go look for Aniki... but nobody would give me permission. I tried for years to convince people that I was capable enough, but nobody gave a damn. They said... they actually said that the village was better off without powerful, S-class criminals like him. But!" Sasuke clenched his fists and his Sharingan swarmed out without him really realising it. "But Aniki wasn't! Aniki wasn't like that! Aniki had a bright future ahead of him... he wouldn't give it all up just like that! He was the obvious heir to the Uchiha Clan, he had everything and everybody for him! I... I didn't... I really didn't understand why." He sighed, unclenching his fists and looking away from his ex-teacher. "I looked up to him too. He was everything I ever wanted to be..."
Iruka had a look of sympathy across his face, and he couldn't help but say, "It must have been difficult for you."
Sasuke tensed visibly at those words. "That night when he left without a word?" He managed to smile thinly despite his rigidness. "He had promised me that he'd practice shuriken throwing with me the next morning. I waited the whole day for him to show up but he never did. Then I found out that he'd officially abandoned the village." The smile turned into a frown. "I didn't believe it. I still don't. There must be something... some reason behind his sudden departure. But nobody thought the same way I did. Even Father and Mother commented that Aniki had always been strange. So I thought I would find out and prove them all wrong, but..." He sighed and buried his face in his hands.
"But there was too much red tape to cut to get to that stage officially, right?" Iruka prompted. Sasuke nodded dumbly.
"I had to become ANBU before I could qualify for Oinin," the boy further clarified. "But the powers that be in the village just refused to let me rise to Jounin before I was 16. They said they didn't need anymore bigots flooding the ranks and then abandoning the village when it was convenient. They wouldn't listen to whatever I wanted to say, so finally," Sasuke looked up, and this time, straight at Iruka in the face, "I thought I'd submit my reason for departure, regardless of whether they approved or not, and leave the village on my own mission." A pause. "Sakura tried to dissuade me," the boy grudgingly admitted, looking back to the floor, "but nobody can stop me. I'll find Aniki if it's the last thing I do." He eyed his Academy teacher carefully. "And that means you too, sensei. I don't want to hurt you, so please don't-... try to stop me."
Iruka's eyes turned soft. "And what will you do," he asked quietly. "after you find him?"
"..." The boy was without speech for a while. "I don't know," he finally sighed. "I just... I just feel like it's the right thing to do. Aniki wasn't like that... wasn't like that at all." He bowed his head. "Maybe I'll know, when I eventually do find him, wherever he is, but now..."
The long, brooding silence that proceeded to hang above the duo, as they each got lost in their own thoughts, was broken only by the rambunctious shouting of the one and only Uzumaki Naruto.
The first indication that he was back was when loud, unabiding footsteps suddenly became clearer and clearer. Then the door swung noisily open and a blur of yellow ducked in. The next thing that happened was that a sack with the words 'SALT' marked clearly across in red landed with loud, sandy sounds on the table that Iruka and Sasuke were seated at, surprising them both. Then finally, Naruto's head popped out from behind the sack and he grinned. "Mission accomplished, Iruka-sensei! Enough salt to last us a lifetime! Then, then," he began bouncing excitedly around the oldest person in the room, "Does that mean I'll get a lifetime supply of ramen too? Will I? Will I?"
Iruka smiled and ruffled the boy's head. "I'll think about it!" He gave an encouraging pat. "But in the meantime, how about some miso ramen for lunch for all of us?"
"YES!!" Naruto leapt into the air and danced for joy. "Miso ramen, miso ramen!" He immediately dived into the kitchen in a whirlwind of activity, setting the kettle to boil and pulling assorted cutlery out from cabinets. Sasuke could feel his eyebrow twitching, even as he pointed and asked Iruka, "Why do you even bother?"
The Chuunin shrugged. "We all have different missions in life to complete, Sasuke," he put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "But before that, let's all have a nice meal together, eh? Can't do anything on an empty stomach, shinobi or not!" He grinned, removing his hand and heading in the direction of the kitchen to help Naruto out.
"Sensei," Sasuke blurted before Iruka completely vanished from sight. The man turned around questioningly, and Sasuke continued, "You still owe me an explanation for the real story behind this part of Konoha - and why that moron is so completely out of it." His eyes narrowed. "You /will/ tell me, won't you?"
Iruka's smile faltered, and he considered the situation carefully, waiting for a long time before replying, with a bitter-sweet smile, "I might, Sasuke - if you promise me something."
Taken in by the suspense, the boy arched an eyebrow expectantly.
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That night, Naruto and Sasuke were alone again, when Iruka left before dinner time and ordered them both to get along, or else! Neither boys wanted to test the theory behind the words, and had agreed very quickly with plastered smiles and happy waves.
They stood, shoulder to shoulder, staring down the path Iruka had last been walking in, long after they could no longer make out the vague shape of the Chuunin. Before he had left, Iruka had slipped a an envelope to Sasuke, exhorting him to read it only when he was alone and only when he felt he was ready to find out about a secret that would perhaps change his perspective of Konoha and life as a ninja considerably. He had kept it hidden in his sleeve and wondered if he really wanted to know.
"Hey, Sasuke," the subdued, awe-struck voice of Naruto brought him back from trying to make a tough decision, and he glanced questioningly at his counterpart. "Don't you just love sunsets?" The boy breathed, glancing at the large ball of orange light washing the surroundings anew with its soft, orange glow.
The raven-haired boy peered carefully at Naruto, decided that the boy was hardly joking, before admitting with a shrug, "I've never really stopped to take a good look at it."
"What?! No way!" Naruto turned to face Sasuke with shock. "Where have you been all your life to be missing out on sunsets?!"
The boy sighed. "I've been training and doing ninja stuff, obviously," he shook his head. "Things /you/ obviously are dying to want to do."
"Stop saying it like you think it's impossible!" Naruto flailed his arms wildly and screeched. "You're so going to be eating your words when I kick your ass!"
"With what, the Kage Bunshin again?" Sasuke snorted. "If you think it'll work against me for a second time, I'd advise you to think again."
"You're just saying it because you're unhappy you lost!" Naruto shouted in glee and made the hand seals without really thinking about it. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!!"
The lonely stretch of road leading to Naruto's house quickly began to fill up with multiple echos of Narutos getting beaten up and disappearing into puffs of smoke. The pseudo village was so used to the amount of noise coming from Naruto's house that it didn't bother them any more. In fact, it would have been scarier if there were no noise coming from Naruto's house.
Therefore, the duo spent the entire evening locked in uninterrupted combat, the conclusion of which was not reached until the moon hung shyly in the inky black skies, her twinkling friends clustering around her. Like an attentive audience, they cast their pearly white glows across the landscape, and in particular, upon a couple of teenagers who had yet to retire for the night in the safety of the house behind them. Currently, Naruto was lying face up and spread eagle on the grass of his backyard, panting and wheezing away, face dirtied and clothes in no better condition. Somewhere nearby, Sasuke stood impassively against the glow of the moonlight, breathing audibly but not as out of air as the blond was.
They were silent only for a while more, before Sasuke spoke up, "That was pretty good for someone who only knows one Jutsu," he calmly stated, ignoring the large grin on Naruto's face.
"Hahah!" Naruto was saying, amidst attempts to catch his breath, "I got the bastard to praise me! I'm good!! I'm the strongest!"
"Pah," Sasuke turned his head to one side. "Your measuring scale for strength must be really way out of tune. You can't even beat me one on one!"
"Are you trying to go back on your words, Sasuke?" There was a sly edge to Naruto's tone. "You /said/ I was good! Don't deny it! I heard it! Kakashi and Itachi heard it too, right? You guys heard it too, didn't you?" Naruto struggled onto his hands and knees and shot the observing animals a grin. They had been standing by the large oak tree, side by side, observing the fight from since it began.
Kakashi barked.
Itachi mewled.
"See? They heard it too, so you can't deny it, Sasuke! I'm good!" The boy was now up on his feet entirely, bouncing about to the sound of an inaudible victory anthem.
"Dammit! You knew better than to encourage the idiot!" Sasuke growled at the animals, who simply stared at him. "Ah man, what I am doing, talking to animals..." the boy caught onto his mouth with a hand and began walking towards the jubilant Naruto, who was still dancing away. As soon as he was out of sight and sound, Kakashi turned to Itachi and grinned his doggy grin again.
In response, Itachi slapped him with a kitty paw.
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"Naruto," Sasuke called out, when he decided that the blond was in hearing distance. The shorter boy stopped his flurry of movement and looked back at Sasuke when he heard his name.
"What?" He asked, when Sasuke took a little too long to respond.
The Uchiha cursed softly and looked away. He really wanted to walk away, but he could not go back upon what he had promised Iruka. This was such a bother. He hoped it was really worth his time. "Are you serious about becoming a ninja?"
The effect this question had on the boy was that of immediate silence. Naruto looked carefully at Sasuke with narrowed eyes, determination shining through his clear, blue irises. A cool, night breeze ran through the two of them, but neither responded to the chill, being too engrossed with trying to read each other's expressions instead. Finally, the blond quirked a smile and said, "I'm about as serious as you are on finding your brother, Sasuke."
The boy froze, then frowned with taut shoulders. "You heard." The tone was neither accusing nor threatening - a mere simple statement of fact.
Naruto grinned. He held out his thumb and index finger and said, "Only this much, though. Then I had to run a far distance away to barge in like the noisy idiot I am. Gotta maintain an image in front of Iruka-sensei, after all!"
Sasuke remained unamused. "Why bother if you have to go to such lengths?"
The grin on Naruto's face softened into a wistful smile. "I don't want Iruka-sensei to worry. He's always worrying over this and worrying over that. I don't think I want to one day find out that I've worried him to sickness over something. He's the only person who matters to me in this whole village. So if he feels more reassured when Naruto is happy and bouncing away, then I'll put up this act for all my life just to get him to not worry." The boy glanced up tentatively at the Uchiha, a look of doubt vaguely crossing over his features. "I don't care if you think I'm stupid or not, but don't you dare tell Iruka-sensei! I'll kill you! I swear I will!"
"I look forward to the day when you actually can," Sasuke drawled lazily, causing the unusually calm Naruto to quickly and rapidly return to his usually riled up moods. "You have most of the basics of chakra down pat, but you can't even use it into a proper Jutsu. Genjutsu and Ninjutsu aside, your Taijutsu sucks too." The teen shook his head. "I /really/ look forward to the day when you can actually say you tried to kill me."
"Argh! You selfish, arrogant, ego-bruising no-good bastard!" Naruto yelled, not caring if the entire village heard him or not. "It's your life mission to make me angry, isn't it?! It's your life mission to step on every single nerve I have left remaining after spending all my life in this sad excuse of a village of abuse, isn't it?! Crush whatever dinghy little hope I've had for acceptance since the day I was born; blow out any flame of existence I've been clutching on in these dark times... you just exist to make me feel bad, isn't that right, Uchiha Sasuke? I'm telling you I'm not gonna take your shit anymore than I have to so just PLEASE tell me why the hell are you being so holier-than-thou?! Or are you /always/ such a cactus? Do you live to hurt? Do you-"
"NARUTO!!" The blond was taken aback by the sudden facial close-up of the one Uchiha Sasuke, followed by a rough grab of the scruff of his collar, and boy did Sasuke look pissed. Still holding that pose, Sasuke snarled, "Will you just shut up and listen for a moment?!" He didn't wait for the blond's response, continuing quickly, "I really /do/ think you're a stupid moron who can't do anything right! And I really do want to make your life miserable because, oh hell, because /you/ get on /my/ nerves! If you got a problem with that, then too bad for you. The world doesn't bloody belong to you and you can be sure not everybody's going to be doing things the way you want them to. If you're going to react the way you do to me everytime you see someone like that, then you're going to lose your voice faster than I can say 'dead-last.' And when that day comes, I'll be laughing at you from wherever I may be at and popping confetti at your plight. Because you deserved it! Now get your head out of the well and look at reality, brainless!"
After his resounding speech, Sasuke released his hold on Naruto's collar and pushed the other, slightly stunned boy backwards. Naruto stumbled twice, then fell onto the ground in a sit, blinking in bright-eyed wonder.
The darker-haired boy immediately brought a hand up to cover his mouth, even as he looked away with stark surprise evident in his eyes. "Dammit, what the hell was I thinking, arguing with an idiot like that..." He stole a quick glance at Naruto, noticing that the boy had not moved from his position on the grass since stumbling onto it, and that he had not averted his eyes away from gaping at Sasuke either. "What?" The Uchiha asked with annoyance in his voice. "Cat got your tongue?"
The wide-eyed, wondering look on Naruto's face quickly dissolved and was replaced with a scowl. "Shut up, you!" Naruto growled, although Sasuke could not detect any real malice behind it. "Why are you still here? I thought you said you were leaving by tonight." The blond added, almost as an afterthought.
"I was going to, until I realised that I couldn't, if I wanted to keep my promise to someone we both know." The Uchiha gave a vague, all-encompassing, non-committal reply. This caused Naruto's head to tilt in confusion, but before the blond could say anything, Sasuke continued, "So are you serious about being a ninja anyway?"
"I already answered that, amnesiac-Sasuke," Naruto stuck his tongue out at his companion, who rolled his eyes and scoffed. The boy then used the pause to clamber slowly to his feet, dusting the soil and broken grass off his pants. "Why do you keep asking anyway?"
"It's your dream, right?" Sasuke mumbled half-heartedly. "We have to start from somewhere, I suppose..."
"Your words don't make any sense whatsoever, Sasuke," Naruto remarked blandly.
"Probably not to you," Sasuke shrugged and did not bother to explain. He then started heading back the direction of the house.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted for attention when Sasuke brushed by him without a word. "Hey hey hey!" He continued to shout, seeing how none of his solicitations for attention were getting any response. He turned and ran after the darker-haired boy quickly, pouting. "Does this mean you're going to continue leeching ramen off me?! Why the hell aren't you leaving? Come on, give me a straight, easy-to-understand answer! Sasuke!!"
The darker-haired teen stopped in mid-step and turned around to give Naruto a look of semi-veiled exasperation. "Because Iruka-sensei..." He was about to finish his sentence when a thought struck him and made him shut up. He looked to a side and frowned at his slip of tongue. That was really close!
"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto, however, was not about to let it go so easily. "What has Iruka-sensei got to do with any of this?" The blond had sounded offended. "Come on, don't just keep staring and holding your mouth with your hand! Talk to me, hey!"
Sasuke did remove his hand from his mouth, and he scowled angrily at the ball of blond energy beside him, waiting expectantly with uprised clenched fists and hunched shoulders for his response. He had never, ever, met a boy like that in his life before, and he hoped never, ever to meet someone like that again. This was impossible! What was Iruka-sensei thinking when he asked Sasuke for a favour like that?
"Listen idiot," Sasuke leaned in closer to the blond and narrowed his eyes, hoping to frighten him into a more submissive mood. Of course, trying to keep snowballs above a roaring campfire frozen might have been easier, for Naruto narrowed his eyes right back in defiance. Sasuke sighed inwardly. "Just think about it from my standpoint for a while if you can. There's a serial murderer on the loose, and he's killed tons of people in the past few years alone - enough to make any ANBU ashamed of themselves. He's managed to stay hidden from the villagers out for his blood for revenge so far, until finally, someone manages to take a picture of him. Said picture then gets splashed across the bulletin boards and papers. Now here comes the important part, listen carefully," Sasuke breathed, ignoring the hidden look of awe on Naruto's face.
"The damned bugger looks. Just. Like. Me! Me! An innocent passer-by! Me! Right down to the red Sharingan, too! So while I was trying to get myself a drink on a nearby road stall somebody sounded the alarm. Before I knew it, they've despatched two Jounins to pursue me, with lots more coming as reinforcement some time later. Now. Imagine for a moment you were me. You're running from some people who obviously won't hesitate to slaughter you on sight if you even resist. You dive into a house for sanctuary and miracles of miracles, manage to get some. Now..." Sasuke lifted a finger in a school-teacher way, much like how he saw Iruka used to always do in class to get the children's attention. "Will you leave immediately and attempt to go away, when security is tight and the people are edgy and on the lookout? Or would you rather stay for a while, until the tension eases and people no longer keep an active lookout for you to try to throw you into prison? Which would it be?"
"Of course I'll stay out of danger first!" Naruto folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes in exasperation. "Which moron would dive head first into danger and put his life on the line if he can solve it by simply waiting for the issue to pass over quietly? I know /I/ certainly won't!"
There was a short period of silence after Naruto's answer, during which Sasuke closely watched the boy for any indication that he had understood the problem at hand and was willing to give a helping hand. There was, unfortunately, none. Naruto stood in the same unbending pose and looked at Sasuke for a further debrief.
This time, Sasuke groaned aloud. He looked at Naruto seriously in the eye and said, "Do you really understand the role you're playing here, Naruto?"
Slightly thrown off track by the sudden question, Naruto unfolded his arms and let them drop to his side, while he blinked at Sasuke. "My role?" He repeated, not quite understanding.
"I agree with you that it would be suicidal to be running around so soon again after the villagers were out for my blood," Sasuke slowly started again. "Therefore the best solution is to lie low until the situation blows over, right?" He waited for Naruto's response, which came in the form of a nod. "Where do you think I can 'lie low' in, seeing that I don't live in this part of the village, neither do I have friends here?"
"No shit about that you anti-social megalomaniac," Naruto replied instantly, still looking at Sasuke in the eye. "And as for lying low, that's easy! You can stay at my house, right? You've been staying at my house all this time, though that doesn't necessarily mean I like it any better than you do...- oh, wait. Oh. Oooooh." The light finally dawned upon the blond and he stepped one small step backwards with soft gasps of revelation.
The raven-haired boy did not bother to rub it in this time, choosing instead to ask, "You said it yourself lying low is the best solution. The problem is, however, that I need your cooperation. I hope I don't need to elaborate anymore than that. You have the final say, Naruto. This is your house, after all."
There was a tone of finality in Sasuke's voice, even as his mind raced to form contingency plans for what he knew was an inevitable boot out of his present sanctuary by Naruto. They hadn't exactly started off on the right foot, after all, and they had only known each other for a day. Naruto doubtlessly still harboured suspicions about Sasuke's innocence, as he had boldly declared time and again.
And Sasuke noticed that as he pondered his thoughts over and over again, Naruto remained an expressionless lump of human flesh staring at him without moving in the slightest bit. The Uchiha sighed. "Whatever it is, I just wanted to say thanks for putting up with me for a night and a day. I hope you'll manage to fulfill your drea-"
His well-wishes were curtailed when Naruto's hands shot out and grabbed him by the dark fabric of his shirt, pulling him slightly closer. Giving a small yelp of protest, Sasuke quickly found himself staring into the clear, blue eyes of an innocent, expectant child. These were the eyes of a child trapped in a world of apathy for so long that very few things had mattered anymore. A child whose eyes reflected the fierce protectiveness of an adult, but also the pure emotions of inexperience. Right now, this child was open and unguarded - he had something on his mind and a question on his lips that would make or break. Clutching the dark-haired ninja's shirt tighter, Naruto mouthed quietly, "Do you mean it?"
"M-mean what? Sasuke stuttered slightly under the strong look Naruto was throwing in his direction at a close distance.
"That you..." Naruto continued, eyes steely yet frightened at the same time. "... That you need my cooperation... that... that I'm needed to help you... help you... that I'm needed?" The boy's determination to remain calm and composed wavered at his final words.
Sasuke stared for a moment, then shrugged himself free from Naruto's grasp. "I don't know what you're getting so amazed at about," he flatly commented, dusting the front of his shirt in an attempt to distract himself from his heart, still rapidly beating at the close encounter just now. "But just in case your dumb retard ears didn't hear it right the first time..."
He breathed.
"... I'm on the run for a crime I didn't do. I swear I'm not trying to kill anyone, nor am I trying to kill you. All I want to do is to cross the borders of the Fire country in one piece - hopefully not battered or bleeding in five or six places either, and that means I don't want any trouble. So I need your cooperation and your help to house me until the storm tides over. It seems like the most logical choice of action at the moment, but I'll be damned if I had to force you to agree to help me. That would probably mean I'd have to bind and gag you and sweep you under your bed or something. I think I'll feel better if I'd just ran out and risk getting caught if I had to stoop to /that/ level. And STOP gaping at me like that, you insufferable dimwit!" Sasuke finally shouted and used a finger to tap lightly at Naruto's vulnerable forehead. "I'm going now, okay?" The dark-haired shinobi sighed and turned, ready to disappear into the night.
That is, until he noticed that he couldn't, when Naruto had a grip on his wrist as tight as that.
"Oh no you don't," the sly grin was back in full force on Naruto's face, his previously deer-in-headlights expression disappearing into the vortext that was his stomach. Probably. "You come and disrupt my life for one whole day and night, and then you're gonna go away just like that?" There was something in the way Naruto had said the sentence that made Sasuke's hair stand on ends. "I don't think so, buster," the blond continued, and then quickly turned to the direction of his house, walking towards it, Sasuke's hand still in his grab.
"Hey, wait-" Sasuke stumbled at the sudden pull but caught himself before he tripped. "What are you doing, moron?!"
"Going home, stupid. Can't you tell?"
"I can /see/ that very well, dimwit. Why the hell are you dragging me along then?"
"Isn't that obvious? Because you're coming with me!"
Silence.
"/What??!/"
"Oh for crying out loud, stop whining like a little girl, Sasuke! Or would you /really/ rather I boot you out and you face the wrath of the council waiting to skin you alive and shred your flesh into little shreds while you watch on?"
"... no?"
"Then shut up and just follow me."
Another silence.
"Why are you helping me?"
The sounds of moving feet shuffled to a stop.
Naruto looked up at the taller boy and grinned. Framed by the soft luminance of the moon, his face almost looked angelic. That was of course, until he spoke up.
"Because you still owe me one. And the last time I did any spring cleaning was three years ago."
The footsteps resumed walking.
Painful silence.
"... /I see./"
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"Be his friend, please?" Iruka smiled, while holding the envelope which he had slipped his narrative in between his fingers.
Sasuke eyed the envelope cautiously, then blinked at the request. "Pardon me?" He eventually managed.
"It's not as easy as it looks, Sasuke," Iruka's smile turned sad. "But if you do as I say, I'll not only tell you what I know - I'll even let you leave the village and pretend I never saw or heard anything." He beamed. "Good deal?"
Noticing the hesitation in Sasuke's eyes, Iruka boldly stepped towards the younger ninja and lifted a hand of the boy, placing the envelope firmly into his palms.
"It's not as easy as it looks, Sasuke," the ponytailed man repeated, this time with a stern countenance. "How many true friends have you ever had? Whom you could trust with your life? Trust with your darkest secrets?" He noticed the boy tense, and so shot him a reassuring smile. "If even for a boy like you an answer is so difficult, then..." The man looked once, wistfully, in the direction of the kitchen, where sounds of Naruto tussling with the cutlery could be heard. The trailing sentence never saw a completion, for he next said, "It's always better to have someone your age to share woe and weal with. Sasuke," a warm hand rested on the Uchiha's shoulder. "Treat it as a challenge, if you must."
The boy narrowed his eyes in confusion at his former Academy teacher, even as Iruka took a few steps backwards to come in full view of his former student. The Chuunin smiled.
"Be his friend, please?"
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Part 3 of 7
17/5/2004
tougenkyou . net / xd