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!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Crossroads of Life
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Five
"Get back!" Adrenaline and instincts completely took over Sasuke. He pushed as many people and animals as he could deeper into the house and formed a complicated seal. "Doton! Tsuchikabe no Jutsu!"
The large, flesh golem like undead creature was surprisingly fast for its size, and was nearly reaching the house with an outstretched fist when the large slab of earthern wall blocked it entirely from view and approach. The rumbling continued for until the house was encapsulated in an eerie, creepy, rustic darkness, complete with the chirping of underground crickets.
Sasuke released his hand seal and slumped onto the floor with a sigh, his chakra pricking slightly inside him. It seemed like all the rest he had gotten so far had yet to restore him to peak condition yet.
"Wha-What the hell was that creature just now?" Naruto jumped suddenly onto his feet. He looked frantically, and semi-demandingly at his companions.
Growling, Sasuke shot back quickly, "I wish I knew!" while getting back onto his feet. There were faint thudding sounds from the other side of the stone walls and the ceiling was slowly but surely starting to give way. A particularly large slab of wall caved in near Sasuke and nearly sliced his shoulder off. "Shit, that thing's not giving up. Dammit!"
"Get us back out in the open, Sasuke," Iruka wisely admonished. "This earth wall is not going to hold for long, and the house is too cramped to fight in. The thing isn't going to give up, I think. We'll be caved in at this rate anyway."
Even as he spoke, the sounds grew progressively louder, and cracks began to show on the wall from the inside. More pieces of the roof fell down with dangerous, cracking sounds. Sasuke frowned and cursed. "Pick up anything you can use for a weapon, and the animals, and we'll break out from the other side. Hurry up!" He yelled, looking around the room quickly at the same time. Kakashi was a large dog, who probably could outrun the monster if he had to. Currently he stood with a wagging tail and a long, wagging tongue, signifying his readiness. Itachi, on the other hand...
"Where's Itachi?" Naruto's panicked voice rose above the din that was Iruka scouring the scene for usable weapons. "Itachi!"
In the chaos that followed, it was Kakashi's bark that attracted their attention to the large slab of ceiling that had fallen near Sasuke. Upon closer examination, they were aghast to find that the black cat was there, and one of his hind legs was wedged between the dislodged roof and the floor, rendering him immobile. The cat looked up impassively at the people before him, visibly shivering in pain. Quickly, though, he looked away, refusing to make a single sound. He did shoot a look at Kakashi, as if desperately trying to tell him to get the rest of the people away before it was too late.
"Itachi!" Naruto, however, missed the point entirely. "No! No!! We're not going away without Itachi! I refuse to go without Itachi!" He crouched towards the cat and glared behind his shoulders at the others, daring them to challenge his decision.
"Naruto!!" Sasuke's tone was admonishing. "This is not the time to be-" He stopped abruptly when Naruto flashed him an angry, bloodshot glare. Did Naruto's irises just /turn/ crimson?, the Uchiha questioned his eyesight. He shook his head to clear that vision out, and true enough, when he glanced at the boy again, he was staring into angry pools of blue instead of red. "Ah crap!" He cursed, Naruto's words last night invading his mind again. Naruto was someone who would rather suffer than to see someone precious to him suffer. It would do no good to argue with him at a crucial time like this.
Abruptly, the raven-haired boy grabbed Naruto's wrist and hoisted him to his feet. Before the blond could protest, Sasuke turned to Iruka and commanded, "Sensei! Get Itachi out from the rubble, then get them to somewhere safe! Naruto and I will distract the monster in the meantime!"
"What?!" Naruto screeched into his ear, causing him to almost release his grip on the blond. "Are you nuts?! No way am I going to-"
"Bloody hell! Just do it already!" Sasuke barked back, applying more force to his grip on the complaining blond's hand. "Stop arguing with me and help me!"
"Naruto!" It was Iruka, and he had crouched down to attend to the trapped Itachi. "Trust me! I'll get them both to safety by hook or by crook!"
In the background, the rumbling sound got louder and louder. Sasuke cursed and finally released the shocked blond's hand, glaring at him while saying, "Get your act together and follow me when you're ready!" Without waiting for a response, the young Chuunin clasped his hands together, facing the area where the huge knocking sounds were coming from. "Kai!" He said, and suddenly, the large chunk of mud wall that had previously been blocking the door dissolved into nothingness. The Uchiha bent his knees slightly. In the next instant, he was nothing but a puff of dust and a trail of footsteps fading into the distance.
The rumbling sounds ceased, and the ceiling of the house stopped trying to fall onto the ground. Naruto and Iruka stared in the direction Sasuke had last been seen going in, one gaping and one thoughtful.
Quickly, Iruka who broke the silence.
"Here," he pressed something cool and metallic into Naruto's hand, earning a stare of confusion from the man. "Naruto, remember the kunai you always used to dig your garden soil with?" He paused, and Naruto nodded.
"The bunai?"
"... Kunai," Iruka tried hard not to facefault. He pointed at the metallic thing in Naruto's hand. "It is a weapon - it works like a dart. And only ninjas can use it with efficiency. Naruto," Iruka squeezed the boy's hand encouragingly. "Teamwork is important for the shinobi - you need to trust your partner with all your life - and that means you have to believe whatever he says, even when it sounds impossible, and even when it doesn't always go the way you want it to." He looked seriously at Naruto in the eye. "Do you understand?"
The blond quickly looked away, an annoyed pout etched across his countenance. "Yeah," he mumbled.
"Good," Iruka smiled warmly at the boy. "Now get out there and kick some butt! I'll get Kakashi and Itachi to somewhere safe for sure."
The blond whipped around to stare at his sensei in disbelief. Slowly, though, the distrust and hesitation in his eyes melted away. He grinned, pocketing the kunai and striking a pose. "Yes, sir!"
The ponytailed man watched, proudly, as the bundle of energy he had seen grow from a boy to a teen dashed out of the house to join his comrade in the fight. A few moments of silence later, however, he turned his attention back to the black cat, still suffering under the slab of ceiling.
He had a mission to do here as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sasuke had briefly brushed by the humongous chimera-like humanoid and could smell death in its wake. The dissolving mud wall had caused the monster to lose its punching target. While it stumbled forward at the loss of balance, Sasuke took its moment of confusion to fly as quickly and as far away as he could.
Predictably, the creature turned as soon as it was able to and pursued Sasuke with inhuman speed. The Uchiha had yet to even come close to the borders of the forest when he could feel the thing close to his back.
Cleaving to the humming of pure instincts, Sasuke ducked and rolled, managing to avoid a lethal claw attempt at his jugular. Quickly tossing himself onto his feet, he shot a random amount of kunai and shuriken at his target, knowing that its big size would make it easy to hit. He had underestimated, however, the creature's astounding speed and constitution. Although a couple of sharp objects found their target, the remaining were deflected with an easy sweep of hand. Not to mention, the kunai and shuriken that had embedded themselves into the monster did not look like they were taking any effect at all. Still as fast as ever, the creature reappeared behind Sasuke and successfully dug its claws into the boy's neck.
It was to this scene that Naruto barged in.
"Sasuke!!!" He immediately cried out, panicked. He was about to rush over when a whirl of black knocked into him from the side and carried him into the trees. "Idiot, don't! It was just a Kawarimi!" The black blur had hissed. It took Naruto a while to finally realise that the whirl of black was warm, besides the fact that it could speak.
"Sasuke?" He had heard the satirical voice enough times to recognise it on first hear.
By then, they were safely situated somewhere in a tree, which had a clear view of the scene below them - the flesh golem thing turning its head around in all directions to try to locate its target. Sasuke took a few more kunai from his holsters and tied a net tightly to the holes looped around the hilt of the weapons. His Sharingan had snapped into place sometime in between running from the monster to snagging Naruto before he gave their position away, and he could tell that Naruto could not stop staring at it. Securing the net as quickly as he could, he purposely flashed an evil eye at Naruto, ordering, "The thing is going to find us soon - it goes by smell, not by sight. Do the Kage Bunshin to distract him and lure him as far away from the house as you can. We need to restrain it, then we can find its weakness and attack it from there!"
The blond shot his companion a vulpine grin. "Gotcha!" He quickly said, and formed the seals quickly. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
An eruption of smoke temporarily blinded the tree branch from outside view. Soon, however, the Naruto clones began flitting out of the fog in all directions, the sole purpose of luring the monster away retained in their minds.
"Come and get me, ugly duckling!" The Narutos had made faces at the faceless golem and then converged together towards a common destination. As fast as Naruto's clones were, being untrained ninjas at best, they were no match for an undead creature obviously brought to life by some unorthodox summon for the sole purpose of killing. They were caught up upon a short distance away from the house, at the large clearing just prior to the forest, and were wiped out in little puffs of smoke.
But by then, Sasuke was ready.
He had tailed the engrossed monster in the shadows, making doubly sure to use his activated Sharingan to sweep its form for weaknesses. He was disappointed that there were none on its back. Still clutching at a glimpse of hope, he leapt into the nearby trees and raced to meet the creature head-on. Before descending back onto the grassy terrain, he flung the kunai holding his makeshift net together at the thing, succeeding in stopping it from advancing. It would not hold for long, Sasuke knew, however, so he had to be quick in his evaluation. He landed softly on the ground and rapidly scanned the enemy.
He found two points of interest, before the malformed undead tore open the net and began howling for blood again. Taking his cue, he vanished back into the perimeter of the forest, racing from branch to branch near the edge, hoping to shake the creature of his back. The Sharingan faded back into normal black and he briefly wondered where Naruto was. He had to tell the blond about his analysis.
He had not needed to wonder for long, for from the corner of his eyes, where he had been observing the undead creature, a blur of yellow and orange caught his attention and forced him into a dead halt.
The blond dived towards the creature with an unintelligible warcry, and Sasuke felt obliged to gasp in sheer frustration. He wondered whether it would work if he shouted a warning to Naruto there and then. Apparently it was too late, for the boy had tried to punch the monster - missing by a large difference. The raven-haired teen felt like crying into his palms. Why was it that his teammates /never/ listened instructions?
The monster now had its full attention on the blond, who had tumbled unceremoniously onto the ground after his failed attack. Nevertheless, his recovery was amazingly quick. He leapt back onto his feet and donned a defensive pose, snarling angrily at the blank-faced undead.
There was a swift rush of air, and Naruto found Sasuke beside him in no time. "Bird-brain!" The darker-haired teen said immediately upon making his presence known. "I told you to wait for my instructions!"
"But you were taking so long!" Naruto whined, knowing that he did purposely disobey Sasuke's commands this time. "I wanna hit this thing back to where it came from and just get out the hell of here!"
They were forced to break formation when the creature came charging at them. Inertia was great as the thing was very large, though, and while the creature took its time to recover from its missed punch, Naruto and Sasuke quickly regrouped.
"Listen!" Sasuke hissed to his companion. "The Forbidden Scroll - that thing has it! That means if we defeat it, we'll accomplish our mission as well. Do you understand?"
It was shock that was reflected on Naruto's face at first, then disbelief. He frowned to indicate that he was pondering over the words just said, and eventually the boy brightened up with a beam. "All right! That's like killing two frogs with one snake, right?"
Sasuke blinked once at the phrase. Then his eyebrow twitched in frustration as he corrected, "Two /birds/ with one /stone/..."
"Incoming!" Naruto yelped, interrupting Sasuke's speech of indignation.
Quickly, they split up again, but not before Sasuke shouted, "The chakra eye in in the middle of its face, Naruto! Aim for that eye!"
A mass destruction of nature immediately followed, with flying soil and broken twigs decorating the stiff, late morning air. The undead creature was a formidable opponent, who seemed to run on limitless energy - but its one single flaw was slowly becoming evident. It was unable to utilise its chakra to do anything much except to fly a few powerful punches and to move at break-neck speed. Its lack of intelligence was probably what was keeping Naruto and Sasuke alive now, considering how relentlessly it attacked the boys. Still, there was no end to the battle in sight. Sasuke cursed under his breath when he was forced to hide in the forest again, watching as a few more Naruto clones distracted the creature. They were going to get nowhere at this rate.
He scanned the terrain quickly, and spotted a heap of dried wood stacked against each other on the far side of the forest. An idea sparked, but he had to either get the monster near the heap or get the heap near the monster - neither of it seemed very possible at the moment. Instincts directed him to duck to the right, which he did; narrowly missing getting hit by one of Naruto's Kage Bunshins. The Bunshin disappeared into a puffy white cloud, and Sasuke's eyes lit up.
"Naruto!!" He shouted, while bursting out of his leafy sanctuary. All Bunshins looked up at him, although only one replied.
"What the hell is it now? Can't you see that I'm busy?"
"Leave the thing to me! Get your ass over to that pile of firewood over there and bring them as close to this area as you can!" The raven-haired boy pointed at the woods at the far edge while landing onto the ground. "Hurry up and do it!"
"All right, dammit! You didn't have to shout!" Naruto snorted, and in the next second, was racing into the distance with his remaining clones.
Momentarily lost, the golem attempted to take off after Naruto, but was tripped by an unseen wire Sasuke had placed in his way after Naruto made for the firewood. "Oh no you don't," Sasuke said, moving at the same time to stand directly in front of the creature. "Your opponent is me."
The creature howled again, raising both its hands up to the skies and then crouching, ready to attack. Sasuke tensed, kunai in one hand and the other resting just above his shuriken holster. To his surprise, however, no further movement came from the flesh golem. He gulped inaudibly, a sense of dread invading upon his sixth sense. Something did not seem to be right.
"Uchiha Sasuke," a deadpan voice issued forth from the undead, and Sasuke almost dropped his kunai in surprise. "I see. So /you're/ the reason why my undead summon is taking so long to get rid of the Kyuubi." The thing laughed disgruntledly. "Stay out of this, Uchiha Sasuke. I'm only warning you once."
/So the sad excuse for a summon can talk.../ Sasuke mused silently to himself. /... without a mouth. Real amazing. Wait. What? Kyuubi? What the heck is that?/ He shook his head to get the random thoughts out of his mind, then clutched the kunai closer. "Since you're finally starting to show signs of having a brain, I'll just warn you right back," his voice sounded dangerous. "Nobody gets away with attacking innocent civilians. Nobody."
"Big words for a small boy," the eerie voice continued, and now the flesh golem rose to full height, towering over the teen. "Let us see how you fare against the might of a ninja far better than you in any field of expertise!" The boney fingers of the creature clamped shut against each other to form a seal.
"... ninja? You?" Sasuke wondered, his Sharingan catching everything the creature was doing and processing the possible ways of countering the Jutsu. He quickly formed the seals.
"Suiton, Suikoudan no Jutsu!"
The water projectiles began to form out of nowhere, even as Sasuke made his final seal, cursing silently to himself because he knew he was late and would get hit by something for sure. "Doton, Doshouheki no Jutsu!"
An onslaught of sand and soil shot up from the ground around Sasuke and began to build into an impenetrable barrier. The elements crashed with a fantastic sploshing sound and for a long while, only the sight of water attacking packed clay could be seen.
When the attack ceased, the undead perused at the sight before it much with displeasure.
The barrier of sand which was the Jutsu Sasuke had pulled, had not even been dented.
A bright, warm glow from above it caused the creature to glance upwards, just in time to catch scattered fire-flowers raining down upon him. Behind the rapidly approaching Housenka no Jutsu, he could see a rather wet looking Sasuke just recovering from the skill. If it could smile it would have. At least one of its water projectiles had hit the young ninja, that meant.
Several Housenka singed its flesh, but it did not so much as wince - not that Sasuke had expected it to. It was, after all, nothing but an unfeeling golem controlled by someone whose presence he could feel was in the vicinity. He knew, however, that if he could only attack the creature to such an extent that it was unable to move at all, then they could take the time to run away. Killing an undead was impossible, but rendering it immobile was at least thinkable. His eyes began scanning the terrain again, taking note that the logs were now no longer in the far distance. That meant that Naruto had moved it somewhere, right? Where was that idiot anyway?
He broke out of his worrying to see that the undead creature was now in the middle of yet another complicated set of seals. Cursing to himself, he raced to catch the final sequence with his Sharingan, knowing that there was a low possibility he could come up with a counter in time, but willing to try anyway. Quickly clasping his hands together, his heart raced when he saw that the creature had seemingly finally finished the hand seals.
"Ninpou, Kongou Saisei no Jutsu!" The monotonous voice uttered, and a ghastly blade began protruding out from the bowels of its chest. It lengthened and stretched, until Sasuke could finally discern that it was a long lance of sorts, with a handle made out of slimey, greenish things he wouldn't touch to save his life and a white blade that gleamed with a malicious aura - like it had a life of its own. He shuddered, an inner fear almost overtaking his form in the presence of the very personification of death. He didn't have enough chakra to go up against this thing anymore. He didn't know enough skills to counter its moves. He was not going to make it! And he could feel his knees going weak, his willpower slowly leaving him.
That is, until the angry voice of Naruto shook him from his reverie.
"Sasuke, bastard! HEY! I've been shouting at you for a million times now, are you listening to me at all?! HEY!!" The irritating voice was coming somewhere from his left, and it was completely ruining his composure. Even the enemy seemed inclined to tilt its head slightly in the direction of the sound to find out what it was. The raven-haired ninja sighed to himself and took his opponent's moment of slight distraction to bound towards Naruto's general direction.
"Finally!" The blond censured him with a glare when Sasuke came near him. "I thought you'd never hear me!"
"Idiot! Get down!" Sasuke swore and pushed Naruto on his shoulders, making him collapse on his butt painfully. The blond cursed with his whole life and shook a fist, meaning to kick Sasuke in the shin when a large, triangular blade thrust into the spot where Naruto had been standing. The blond gaped. He would have been skewered if Sasuke hadn't pushed him out of the way.
Quickly getting onto his feet, Naruto pushed himself as far away as he could from the undead creature, who now swung its large lance around for a second attack. Flipping backwards twice, he skidded to a halt beside Sasuke, who was behind the log pile, examining it with great interest.
"I did as you told me to, so what now?" Naruto tried to keep the irritation out from his voice. Sasuke's long silences always occurred before he did something strange or just downright stupid - or so, Naruto thought. He shrank back slightly when Sasuke pinned him with a 'i-know-what-you-are-thinking' glare. The Uchiha then turned to face the enemy, hands clasped in a hand seal.
"Stay away, Naruto, and get ready to attack after I'm finished with him. Remember to attack that eye in the middle of its head!"
Although wanting to ask Sasuke where the 'eye' was, because he sure as anything could not see any 'eye,' Naruto nodded and quickly bounded into hiding - just as he heard the first words of Sasuke's Jutsu.
"Katon, Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" A huge ball of red-hot fire desecrated the morning air, tinging it with the sour taste of destruction. The chakra flames licked greedily at the firewood Naruto had piled up messily, and the undead flesh golem was forced to stop in its step in the presence of such a wildly spreading fire. Flesh and fire just did not go hand in hand together.
"Thinking of tricking me with such a simple thing, youngling?" The dead voice of the undead mused, lowering its weapon to taunt the young Uchiha. "You still have a long way to go..."
He paused, because Sasuke's lips curled up into a knowing smirk. Just one shift in the seal he held and the fires began wavering into something else altogether. "Ryuuka no Jutsu!" Sasuke completed the seal and the large fire before him instantly reacted, churning into a colossal fire dragon, all the more powerful because of the fiery base it rose up from.
Before anybody could next blink, the dragon twisted and dived for the flesh golem. It opened its jaws and completely devoured the creature in the twinkling of an eye, lifting it back up into the air so that all that was left of the creature was now a burnt black mark on the ground.
Both Naruto and Sasuke watched with abated breaths as the regal looking dragon made of fire spat out something long - and it landed somewhere in the forest. Sasuke tensed. That must have been the Forbidden Scroll he had spotted hidden in the golem. The dragon then soared further and further into the horizon, governed by Sasuke's pre-programmed instructions to carry its prey as far away from them as they could. When finally, the final sparks of the glowing flame dissipated from their sight, Sasuke released his hand seal and sank onto his knees with a huge sigh.
He felt numb and knew that his chakra was not in good form presently. After the Tsukiyomi - which he had not really mastered and thus it was a skill that took up almost all his chakra, he had to face an undead enemy that could not be killed. When did his life descend into such misfortune? And he was only trying to get out of the country, too!
"Are you all right, Sasuke?" Naruto asked awkwardly, raw concern in his surprisingly quiet voice. The raven-haired boy glanced briefly at him and thought he could see pity in the blond's bright blue eyes. He frowned.
"I'm fine..." Sasuke quickly replied, struggling to his feet, not wanting to be in the sympathy of the blond. "Let's go help Iruka-sensei and the others-"
"That won't be necessary, a new presence entered into the clearing, rustling the grass with his slow and steady footsteps. "Naruto. Sasuke."
Sasuke shot one look into the direction of the man and was instantly guarded. Naruto, on the other hand, slowly smiled with genuine happiness. "Old guy!" He said, pointing to the village chief. There was a pause. "What do you mean?" Naruto's voice was filled with wonder. "Why shouldn't we go help Iruka-sensei?"
The gray-haired man laughed, his friendly mask still on his countenance. In one hand he held the Forbidden Scroll, which he must have collected from where the fire dragon had spat it out from. He stroked his beard gently, and still with an amiable face and tone of voice replied the ecstatic boy.
"Because he hates you. And he can't wait to hurt you. I'll bet he's killed your precious pets by now and left them mangled and bloody in your house? Why don't you take a look?"
The silence that followed was cold.
Sasuke was disgusted at how the man could smile like he was the happiest man on earth when verbally assaulting a boy who trusted him with his life. He could literally feel the shock emanating from Naruto. Slowly, it dissolved into anger, then disbelief, then frustration, and finally, distrust.
Naruto's eyes filled up with pain and betrayal. "You... you were just like every one else! You were just like them all too!!"
"Of course I was," the village chief was still smiling, and Sasuke felt his blood boil. "And Iruka-sensei was like that too. Oh my, you mean you didn't know? You couldn't possibly have felt that a wriggling worm like you could actually have people acknowledge you as a person at all? You belong right down there will all the people you have caused to die, child." Still with a smile.
"Iruka-sensei..." Naruto's face went blank for a while, then twisted with fury again. He broke away from his position beside Sasuke and turned towards the house with a mad sprint. There was something he had to verify there.
Something that would change the way he viewed life forever.
The chief stood smiling still, stroking his beard and nodding his head. Sasuke frowned at him. "You're a piece of human trash," the Uchiha enunciated coolly. "A perfect waste of healthy, breathable air."
The old man twitched slightly, but it was covered up soon. "You youngsters know nothing."
"I know where to throw my garbage next time," Sasuke shrugged, "in your mouth. That's all that's necessary. You're a waste of my breath. Go away," he glared and vanished with a smoking tele-transportation Jutsu.
The old man maintained his calm, although his anger was slowly but evidently building.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Naruto was just ten steps away from the perimeter of the building he called a home when a blur of white smoke and black cloth blocked him from further movement. He stumbled clumsily backwards with a yelp and saw that it was just Sasuke. Holding a hand to his heart, he screeched, "Don't stand in my way, bastard!"
"What way of yours am I standing in?" Sasuke replied stoicly, raising an eyebrow. "/You/ are getting in our way. Hurry up and get back there so we can kick that old idiot's butt together."
"I-..." Naruto opened his mouth but could not finish his sentence. "I... You- you don't understand! I need to get back to do something! Get lost!" He yelled, and quickly tried to walk by Sasuke. He was almost completely clear of Sasuke's shoulder when a hand shot out and held him back, gripping firmly onto his wrist.
"Go back to do what?" Sasuke's voice was soft, and Naruto tensed. As he had overtaken Sasuke, they now stood back to back, Sasuke's grip on the hand was the only thing connecting them. "Check up on Iruka-sensei? See if he's ran away like the stupid old man said?" The blond winced with guilt, but the Uchiha was not yet done. "I thought you were a better person than that, Naruto - believing in the lie of the enemy-"
"You don't understand!" Naruto interjected, voice shaking. "My whole life! My whole damned life I've been living like a fugitive! I've been beaten and bullied for things I never did! I never had anyone I could trust..." He broke down. "I thought I... I thought that I'd still have Iruka-sensei and the old man no matter what everyone else did... but... but I... they..."
The Uchiha's face remained unreadable, a hard glint in his eye. "Naruto," he said sharply, voice determined. "You're right." He said, causing the blond to look up in wonderment. "You've lost one person you could trust. And anyway that old man, I never trusted him to begin with. But Naruto," Sasuke unknowingly gripped the blond's wrist tighter. "If you go into your house now, and follow what that felon asked you to do then you..." Sasuke paused. "... you'll lose one more person you can trust. And not by any fault of his - but by the sheer fact that you never trusted him to begin with."
He could feel the blond shake with hesitation and felt a pang of guilt for his harsh reasoning. Quickly, he squashed that feeling and let Naruto's hand go. "I trust you, Naruto," were his final words to the boy before stepping towards the old man in the distance, ready to do battle with a burning new motivation.
When he was within hearing distance of the village chief, he stopped walking. "What the hell is your problem with Naruto anyway," he spat, not wanting to mince words. "Yes, he's a bumbling idiot and he plays stupid tricks on you all the time, but if that qualifies him for eternal damnation then I think more or less everyone in this village ought to be chained up and tortured - yourself included."
"He has done things that are much more terrible that, of course," the chief replied, still poker-faced. "Speaking of terrible things, aren't you a terrible person yourself?" He pointed at Sasuke, who was taken aback at the sudden accusation. "You were the one who went around slaughtering the people of the village and sending them into insanity weren't you?" He scoffed, not giving Sasuke a chance for a rebuttal. "I thought the Uchiha clan was a noble bloodline who wouldn't stoop to such dirty deeds, but it looks like I was wrong! I should write a report about this to the Hokage... Maybe the Uchiha clan is good only for their eyes!" The village chief punched his opened palm. "Can you imagine how beautiful the Sharingan would look, encased in a glass of preservative liquid, hanging from my ceiling wall?"
Anger shot up to Sasuke's head like a rising tidal wave - fast and unstoppable. "Why you-" he growled in a loud, dangerous voice, hands on his holsters, ready to toss weapons out at random. His father had always told him his emotional nature would get him into trouble one day, but he was too fired up to care at the moment. Things began to take place in slow-motion. He had his weapons out in no time and ran towards the old smirking man, ready to slash him into thousands of tiny pieces of flesh.
"He didn't do it!"
The loud, bold declaration made Sasuke jerk to a stop. Both Sasuke and the village chief glanced up at the source of the sound, neither having noticed the presence of the loud blond atop a large tree branch until he spoke. When he saw that he had their undivided attention, Naruto grinned.
"Sasuke didn't kill anybody!" The blond repeated, and this time he leapt from the branch onto the ground. He quickly ran to stand beside Sasuke and pointed at the old man, his flambouyant, careless grin back in full force. "I'd bet you did all the killing and then so you could push the blame to Sasuke, right? Huh?"
In turn, Sasuke was properly surprised. All this while, he had thought that Naruto - along with everybody else in this place, was convinced that he was guilty of the murders. He felt a small smile tug at his lips at the trust his friend was giving him. But he kept his solemn outlook and bapped the blond upside the head instead.
"What the hell was that for?!" Naruto held his head and glared at the darker-haired teen.
"Nothing," Sasuke replied. "I just felt like doing it."
A chuckle from before them drew their attention away from each other. The old man shook his head and laughed bitterly. "What a touching reunion. However, I hope you have not forgotten that I still have the Scroll that you are looking for," the old man snarled. "And you won't be able to get it from me with your abilities!"
"We'll see about that!" Naruto gritted his teeth and formed the seals. Before Sasuke could stop him, he multiplied into a thousand other Narutos with a loud, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
The village chief was properly shocked at the sight before him. In his shock he had great difficulty deflecting a few of the messy moves the Naruto clones were throwing at him. Grasping at this element, Sasuke snapped his Sharingan into action and quickly formed his own set of hand seals. "Doton, Chikagoku no Jutsu!"
The ground beneath the old man opened up and swallowed him up to his knees, rendering him immobile. One Naruto clone quickly caught the cue and slapped the Scroll away from the distracted man, succeeding in knocking it out of his hands.
As they watched, yet another Naruto clone burst into the scene and stole the Scroll from the heavens, where it had been tossed to. The clone grinned, then turned tail into the forest with the Scroll, disappearing into the undergrowth in the twinkling of an eye.
"Stop!" The elderly man stretched a hand out in the direction of the clone, but was too late. Not that the Naruto clone would have listened to him anyway. With another seal, Naruto made all his other clones vanish and quickly he regrouped with Sasuke.
The older man gave an evil leer, hands coming up to form a seal. "You think you can stop me with such menial tricks? You obviously haven't seen enough of the world, children."
While Naruto was confused at the chief's words, Sasuke visibly started. He quickly grasped his fingers together in yet another seal, and before the man could make another move, conjured a large, sand-packed prison cell around him, just as the chief summoned a geyser of water from nowhere to attack at the sandy locks on his feet.
He instantly saw that the water could not completely penetrate the sandy cell, and immediately dropped his amicable facade. "You little busybody!" He snarled at the Uchiha. "Stay out of our affairs! It's got nothing to do with you!"
"Not when you're trying to kill an innocent civilian!" Sasuke shouted right back. He made another set of seals quickly and concentrated, eventually saying, "Gyouko!". A heavy aura surrounded the prison cell the elder was trapped in, and he snarled even more when he realised what Jutsu had just been used.
"You..." he narrowed his eyes at Sasuke, who was beginning to wobble on his feet. "I underestimated you..."
"What did you just do?" Naruto quickly turned to Sasuke to ask.
"I fixed the position of the sand with some chakra signature," Sasuke replied, taking in huge breaths to try to calm his nerves. Then he smirked. "Unless I die or I choose to dispel the signature, then he stays in there."
A look of sheer awe decorated Naruto's face. "That's so cool! You gotta teach me that sometimes!"
"First you get your Katon skills right!" Sasuke barked back. "Then we talk about learning other Jutsus, you little blockhead?!"
"I'm not a blockhead!" The blond instantly retorted. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I'm gonna be the next Hokage! Then all of you will get some major ass-kicking from me! And-"
"Naruto..." Sasuke's voice sounded dangerous, even to the blond, who shrank back slightly. Perhaps the three gleaming kunais he held in his right hand added much to the scary-Sasuke effect. "... one more word from that damn mouth of yours and I will personally make sure that these three sharp and pointy things you see in my right hand will undertake the grand task of severing the speech muscle from your mouth with the most bloody and painful way you can ever imagine." He slowly walked closer to Naruto, who slowly walked back. "Did I make myself clear?!"
"Ye-... !!" The blond caught his mouth with hand and quickly and nodded fervently. Sasuke was certainly scary with sharp, pointy things. He could kick his ass later when the Uchiha was in a better mood, but for now, Naruto very much preferred to have his tongue remain in his mouth, thank you very much. At this unspoken truce, they both turned to stare at the currently chuckling village chief in the sandy cell.
"Your antics are well played out indeed," he was saying, "and if I hadn't known any better I would have fallen for your innocent charms. But you are both wicked people, black in the heart - and you both must be removed for the good of all," the calmness in which the elder had said this unsettled both boys. "Do you really think you can stop me, even if you should place me in this cell? You are mistaken! I have a lot more people on my side than you have on yours!" His hands slowly clasped each other to form a seal. "And I have a lot more undead creatures on my side than you do, too..."
With a sudden tremour the earth began to shake in its very foundations. Howling sounds grew louder and louder with each shake, until finally, a few trees rustled at the forest edge and subsequently snapped like twigs.
The monster thundered into the clearing again, beating its burnt chest with furor. In one hand, it still held clasped, the slightly charred lance it had been using prior. The handle was also singed, but the blade gleamed brighter than ever. Both Naruto and Sasuke gulped to themselves.
Although, looking on the bright side of things, they no longer had to deal with its reek and smell, nor did they had to see tingles of flesh dangling off the undead thing everytime it moved. It was now just a piece of charred black pork liver. In fact, it /smelled/ like a piece of charred black pork liver. Not that either of them were going to try to find out, anyway. The monster's single eye in the middle of its face was now visible to the world where it had previously been hidden by layers of grime and soot. The duo did the smart thing by quickly breaking formation and running away to hide in the perimeter of the forests again.
Or - Sasuke /tried/ to do the smart thing by doing that, completely forgetting that as Naruto was untrained, such a thought as retreating then counter-attacking had probably never crossed his mind before.
And he found that out only when he glanced into the clearing from his hiding place and realised that Naruto was still there.
He groaned inwardly.
"Eh? Sasuke?" Naruto looked around himself to find that his companion was long removed from his immediate presence. "Sasuke??"
The old man gave a short chuckle, and the tall monster stomped closer to Naruto. "He fled from you, Naruto," he was saying, "just as everybody else has. You're all alone in this world, Naruto. You have no companions at all. Why don't you just die? You'll save us all a lot of trouble."
The blond's shoulders remained tensed, and from where he was, Sasuke was unable to see his expression. /If that little idiot dares believe what that jerk said, I'll twist his neck so hard that he'll be walking backwards for the rest of his life!/ Was his internal decision, as he watched his counterpart carefully for a reaction.
He was not disappointed, for soon Naruto's shoulders began to shake and quiver. Then, without warning, he let out a laugh to the heavens. Just one, short chortle, and he was done. He pointed at the elder, who had turn sombre-faced, and grinned while saying, "I've had enough of believing anything you tell me now. I'm clear on where I stand. Sasuke may have fled like a frightened dog with his tail between his legs for all I care, but he's still a lot better than a bastard like you!"
In his hiding spot, Sasuke desperately resisted the urge to go out and strangle Naruto to death there and then.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" was the loud shout that gave Sasuke the helping hand. He observed as the Narutos began to circle the charred creature, attacking it from all sides. Briefly he wondered how much chakra it took for each Kage Bunshin - since it was a high-level skill he had never quite seen the scroll for it. He continued, though, observing the fight and biding his time.
Naruto was not exactly having an easy time going solo (albeit with many clones) against the large, charred undead. Although the burning of its skin made sure that Naruto could now see the big eye that was the weakness, it also meant that the monster's skin was hard and flakey, and even more impossible to pierce through than before. It swung its large lance at the blond, almost decapitating him. Naruto made a funny face and ran behind his clones, trying to seek a good chance. Where was Sasuke when you needed him anyway?
"When you want something done you really gotta do it yourself, dammit!" He finally got fed up and waiting and dived for the being from behind. He clamped himself rightly onto the creature's back and grabbed its head, lifting it up and holding it there no matter how hard the creature thrashed. "All right, bastard, wherever you are, you better come out and do your thing now!"
"Hn," the soft but recognisable voice of Sasuke drifted into Naruto's ears. "I thought you'd never ask."
Immediately the shine of a couple of kunai forced Naruto to look away. Sasuke had descended from his hiding spot and now raced towards the enemy, setting off two kunai for a start to see if he could hit the thing at long range. Although Naruto held on to its head, the creature still managed to deflect the two weapons away with its large weapon. The blond yelped at the sudden movement, almost getting throw off in the event. "Hurry the hell up, Sasuke!"
"Just hold on to it, okay?" The miffed ninja was cross. He grappled with the string that tied the Fuuma Shuriken to his back and won, unfolding the large shuriken and flinging it at the creature.
Before it reached, though, it split into two - the first one diving for the creature's head and the second one following close behind. Instinctively the creature repelled the one that was headed for its face, but that was a mere Bunshin and it vanished into a puff of smoke. The real Fuuma Shuriken sliced through its right ankle, forcing it onto one knee with a howl.
"Naruto! Don't let go of its head!" Sasuke retrieved a massive amount of kunai and shuriken to clasp in his two hands while dashing towards the creature that was howling at its lost ankle.
"I'm trying, you idiot! I'm trying!!" Was the loud and angry reply, as Naruto attempted to strangle the golem into submission from behind. The barrage of weapons came quickly - Naruto hadn't even seen Sasuke throw it. But he held still and attempted to navigate the undead creature's head so that at least some would the bullseye.
And hit the bullseye it did.
Two kunai successfully embedded themselves into the large eye on the creature's face, and this time the golem howled in what must have been absolute pain. It swung its lance around wildly, knocking into Sasuke, who was unable to stop his fast dash on time to avoid the move. The raven-haired boy was thrown back into the forest, and his descent also meant the destruction of two large trees.
"Sasuke!" On the back of the creature, Naruto cried out. Now that his concentration was splat, the golem expeded no effort at all in throwing him off its back, which it did. The blond landed on the grassy floor with a loud thump, but other than that he was unscratched.
He watched in half fascination as the creature tore at its face with its hand, trying to pull the kunai out but not succeeding for some reason. It still refused to let go of its lance, however, and was now doing a dance of desperation around the clearing. Deciding that it was only a matter of time before the thing expired by itself, Naruto quickly got onto his feet and ran to where Sasuke was thrown to.
"Hey, bastard!" Naruto slowed down in his dash a distance away from the large area that had been pulverized, when he could see one of Sasuke's legs sticking out from the destroyed foliage. "You alive?"
The leg twitched, but that was about all.
"You'd better be alive!" Naruto quickly scrambled over broken wood and torn leaves, until he came to the large pit where Sasuke was lying in. The raven-haired boy coughed weakly and opened an eye to glare at the blond.
"Don't curse me, dead-last." He spat a twig out from his mouth and sat up, slapping his cheeks to try to keep his consciousness. Not only was his chakra almost all spent, he was going to be waking up to several big bruises tomorrow into next week. Seeing the concerned face of Naruto, he stretched a hand in his direction. "What are you waiting for? Help me up, you moron."
The blond snapped out of his anxiety and snarled, "I'm not a moron!" Though he did help Sasuke to his feet.
"Where is that thing?" The raven-haired boy asked suspiciously, glancing around the uncomfortably empty and quiet clearing.
"Huh?" Naruto turned around to look as well. "It's right there-... hey wait a minute..." The blond made his mouth into an 'O' shape. "It was there when I-"
There was nothing but the soft sound of something treading on grass, before the howls of the creature was immediately upon the duo's ears. How it had gotten there so fast without anybody noticing was a mystery neither could figure out. In the shade of the late morning sun, the creature nevertheless cut a formidable presence, lance lifted in readiness, from where it stood behind Naruto.
As for Naruto, the only thing he saw when he turned around was the swift descent of the gleaming blade.
And the spattering of a lot of blood.
... blood,
that was not his.
The pause thereafter was painful.
For the first time in a long while, Naruto was at an absolute loss for words.
There he stood, the talented ninja of some strange academy, a strong, powerful presence in his otherwise boring life; a noisy companion who entered his life just a few days ago - full of dreams and desires, with more than enough ability to fulfil them, having a future brighter than the gleaming afternoon skies.
Impaled on the sharp side of a large blade that was meant for him.
Him. The jinx. The bastard child nobody cared about. The boy with no power, no future, no hope; not worth befriending.
Why?
Before Naruto's mind could supply him an answer, Sasuke coughed and breathed with evident difficulty. That effectively snapped the blond out of his trance, and he leapt to his feet with uncharacteristic shouting. "SASUKE!!" He mouthed, wishing to run to the raven-haired boy's side but frozen on the spot for some reason. The Uchiha was unable to reply, still coughing away, one hand over his mouth and another clutching the offensive lance tightly. "Sasuke-"
The loud roar from the monster disrupted what Naruto had been about to say or ask, and it attempted to regain control of its lance from where it had embedded it into Sasuke.
As Naruto watched on in horror and amazement, the raven-haired boy held his ground and did not budge, until a particular moment in time when it seemed like the creature was about to give up the lance in favour of squashing Sasuke to death instead, the dark-haired ninja reacted.
So quickly, that if Naruto had blinked, he would have missed everything.
When the charred golem loosened its hold on the lance, just slightly, Sasuke grabbed the handle of the weapon that was protruding out from him and twisted it into a firm hold. He then knocked the large blade out of the golem's hands, surprising it so that it threw both charred hands up towards the sky. Taking that brief moment in his stride, Sasuke dashed forward, and still with the blade wedged somewhere in between his chest and stomach, thrust the other end of the lance through the thick skin of the undead creature, effectively pinning it to the large tree behind as well.
Sasuke grunted in pain when the effect of his action caused the blade to go deeper into his body. He ignored it and through some miracle of vague, blurry Sharingan vision saw that the creature was thrashing about before him, stuck between the tree behind him, and Sasuke, with his own weapon running through him like a stick of yakiniku.
To Sasuke's dismayal, he could hear Naruto's incessant rambling from somewhere behind, and he groaned inwardly. He was not quite ready to answer the blond's questions yet, which he was sure would include something along the lines of 'why the hell did you take the blow for me you stinking bastard?!'. Fearing the noisy blond would not listen to his next instructions if he did not at least give an answer, though, he snapped, "Shut up, Naruto! My body just moved by itself, okay? Now get your ass over here and help me!"
There was deathly silence following his outburst, and Sasuke trusted that it meant good things. Still throbbing with the pain of a sharp blade tearing him from inside out, he clasped his hands together in what he hoped would be his final Jutsu for the day.
"Kanashibari no Jutsu!"
The monster trembled, then stopped struggling. It still stood standing, muscles spasming in protest at the chakra body bind, but unable to dispel it if it could not get its hands together to form a seal. Slowly, however, its hands began to move towards the handle of the lance that was buried in his body.
Sasuke's eyes widened, and he tried to pour more chakra into his Jutsu while shouting, "Naruto! Get your lazy ass over here and throw something at his eye! We just need one more and he'll be gone! Don't you dare miss!!"
"Shut up already, Sasuke, I know what to do!" Naruto's irritated voice came from somewhere behind him, and he felt a movement of air that was Naruto leaping over his shoulders to get a clear shot at his target. A sharp, dark object flew at tremendous speed towards the golem, who was too busy struggling to regain hold of its weapon to notice the flying weapon. When it did pay attention, though it was too late.
The kunai found its spot, and buried itself deeply into the eye of the monster, alongside the two other kunai already there.
There was a notable pause, before the creature launched into chaos. It howled in a voice so loud and unworldly, Naruto was sure the entire village would be attracted to the area in fearful curiosity. Speaking of which, the fact that no one else had come after all the noise were being made did bother him, although it could have been an order from that wily old man currently trapped in a sandy prison. At that thought, Naruto's heart contracted in pain. Quickly, he tried to focus on current, more important matters instead.
Sasuke, on the other hand, had a lot more on his mind. For example, he noticed that his Kanashibari was no longer having a strong enough effect on the desperate monster, trying to break out of the bind to treat to his fatal wound. That meant that if the creature was going to start tossing around in pain, then he, who was connected on the other side of the lance embedded in the monster, was going to get torn apart as well. He terminated the the Jutsu and steeled himself.
Then with a quick step backwards, he pulled away from the large blade, biting his lips so that he would not cry out in pain. His stoic silence usually reassured his companions that he was all right, but the massive amount of blood that poured out from the gaping wound on his chest immediately after his act was now going to serve to prove otherwise. He bumped into Naruto unceremoniously, and could hear the blond screaming something in his ear. Still in instincts-mode, however, Sasuke's Sharingan flashed brightly at the staggering creature before them, taut and wary.
Released from the chakra binding and from being pined to the tree, the monster took a few experimental steps forward, clawing at its face. It managed to clasp onto the kunais embedded there and pulled them out with a loud holler, some black liquid oozing out of its source of life, which the sharp objects had punctured. It took a sniff and quickly hurled the kunais in the direction of the boys, who were too distracted with the heat of the battle to notice; or at least, Naruto was. When he did notice, however, the kunai were just a few inches away from running a hole through his brain, and he gasped in shock.
That gasp was knocked out together with the wind in him when Sasuke slammed into him blocked him bodily from the kunai. As Naruto fell onto the ground with a loud THUD, he saw that Sasuke had knocked a couple of incoming kunai away but could not deal with the final one, which was now an accessory on his right chest. Staggering, the dark-haired ninja flung the remaining of his shuriken and kunai in the undead's direction, and while some cut it further in its eye, the others flew around it and fastened it to the tree behind with the invisible strings the Uchiha clan was known for using.
The gasping Uchiha fell to the ground, hanging onto his last vestiges of consciousness. "Naruto..." his voice sounded raspy and weak even to himself. "... get the lance... finish the thing!"
The blond only took one moment to stare, then nodded quickly in grim determination. He dashed towards where the creature had dropped its weapon and picked it up, glaring at the monster that had been the climax of the hell that was fifteen years of his life. He stood in front of the writhing thing silently, pensively.
Then, without a word, he raised his arms and thrust the blade into the already broken eye of the undead.
The creature immediately dropped limp in its captivity, its own weapon protruding sardonically out from its lifesource. Naruto frowned at it for only a while more, then hurried over to where Sasuke was lying sideways, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
Kneeling beside the Uchiha, Naruto's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the once proud and aloof teen, broken and battered on the ground. Although the blond was no expert on trauma and injury, he had been on the receiving end of it enough times to know when bad was bad. He also knew; having seen it himself, that the large blade had run through Sasuke like it was a poker running through a bale of loose hay. The Uchiha bled profusely from the wound by the lance, although he also sported cuts and bruises on various other parts of his body. Naruto gritted his teeth, anger suddenly rising from within him.
"Why the hell did you do that for!!?" He screeched, not caring that Sasuke winced at his volume. "I don't need your help! I don't need anyone to help me! Just mind your own business next time!! I can take care of myself, dammit!" While he was yet rambling, Sasuke gave a mirthless laugh, which irked Naruto even more. "I mean it, damn you! Take me seriously for once!!"
The darker-haired teen made as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind in the last minute. He shook his head and stifled a muffled groan of pain, trickles of cold sweat running down his sheet-white face. Panicked, Naruto went closer and shook his companion slightly by his shoulders. "Sasuke... Sasuke! Sasuke!! Don't fall asleep, come on!" He touched his hand and almost shrank back in shock at how cold it was. "Sasuke!!"
On his side, the Uchiha's thoughts were running as quickly as he knew he was losing his breath. He had used up too much chakra - and was losing too much blood. He had a basic regeneration Jutsu on his body, but even that was proving to be of no use. He slowly watched his very life went out of him, and wondered about the grass he was lying on. He wondered why the skies were so clear, so bright, and why the breeze was so gentle, so kind. He wondered if he should say something to shut the yapping blond beside him up. He wondered if Iruka-sensei and the animals got safely out of the house. He wondered if the sly old village chief was going to harm Naruto when the sandy prison Jutsu dissolved upon his death.
He wondered if anyone would cry when he was gone.
He wondered, if anyone cared.
A sudden coughing fit wracked through his body, and he used the last of his strength to try to at least sit up - hoping that it would keep him awake. A warm hand circled his shoulder and helped him in that task, all this while as he could do nothing but cough up more blood. Eventually he slumped against the body of that warm hand - evidently Naruto's, at the final boundaries of his energy, too tired to do or say anything else.
Something warm stirred within him. He felt a great sense of achievement none of his prior missions had ever given him before. But he could no longer recall what he had done. He was not even sure if that blurry figure he was staring at was Naruto at all. He was still making a lot of noise, so he probably was Naruto. Little idiot never knew when and how to shut up.
Beyond the blond's anguished chatter were the sounds of footsteps of a few people. Sasuke tensed mentally at what he hoped was not danger. A familiar looking face with warm, brown hair and a recognisable ponytail came into his line of sight, worry written all over his face. Sasuke's gut, which had effectively taken over his brain for central nerve control decided that this person was not someone dangerous, and he sighed. As if sensing that the danger phase was finally over, he felt his Sharingan recede back into nothing. He closed his eyes and was immediately bombarded with the shearing pain of torn muscles and pierced internals. Adrenaline had blocked him from feeling much pain previously, but now that the worst was seemingly over, the pain began to spread all over him uncomfortably.
A warm hand ghosted over his forehead and turned his palm over, probably trying to find a pulse reading. Sasuke would have laughed and told whoever that was that it was useless - if he had the energy. Instead he coughed and sputtered more blood out from wherever it was in his body that still had blood left, causing the people around him to go into a panic. But what they did no longer mattered. What they said he could no longer hear.
He could only hear his own heart beating, his own pained breathing, and his own life, as it slowly flowed out from within him.
He could not even hear himself, when he spoke.
"So many..." Sasuke's voice was soft, subdued. "... so many things I... wish I could... ask him... aniki..." A cough. "... why he left the village... made us all so sad... was there anything I did that he was ever proud of?" Bemused tone. "He was so strange... so strange... they all said he was strange... but he was still my aniki... If only... If only..."
A bloodied hand reached out to touch Naruto's shoulder gently, and the blond started, having been enraptured by Sasuke's broken words until now. The raven-haired boy's glazed eyes regained a bit of life, before it was snuffed out again.
"If only... I'd known you earlier... I think... you would have been..."
Naruto had to strain to really hear Sasuke's final words, and when he did, he wondered if what he had heard were indeed true, or if they were just a figment of his imagination.
"... I think you would have been a great friend..."
The remaining words trailed, and Sasuke no longer responded to Naruto's brief shakings. Iruka, who had freed the animals and had joined Naruto immediately thereafter, desperately held on to whatever healing Jutsu he knew to salvage the young Uchiha's life. Naruto could feel, distinctly, his companion - the closest thing he ever had for a friend, relax against him.
Going limp and unmoving.
And while many would remember that day to be a rather normal day of beautiful weather,
Naruto would always remember it to be an ugly day of great loss and tremendous pain.
"SASUKE!!!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Part 6 of 7
2/6/2004
tougenkyou . net / xd
nyao. what do the jutsus mean? mrrr, you can figure it out yourself by reading about what it does and what effect it has. XD no, really. you can! try it! XD XD XD
Warnings: Eventual fluffy friendship between the boys. Do not read if thou art not a fan of fluff!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Crossroads of Life
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Five
"Get back!" Adrenaline and instincts completely took over Sasuke. He pushed as many people and animals as he could deeper into the house and formed a complicated seal. "Doton! Tsuchikabe no Jutsu!"
The large, flesh golem like undead creature was surprisingly fast for its size, and was nearly reaching the house with an outstretched fist when the large slab of earthern wall blocked it entirely from view and approach. The rumbling continued for until the house was encapsulated in an eerie, creepy, rustic darkness, complete with the chirping of underground crickets.
Sasuke released his hand seal and slumped onto the floor with a sigh, his chakra pricking slightly inside him. It seemed like all the rest he had gotten so far had yet to restore him to peak condition yet.
"Wha-What the hell was that creature just now?" Naruto jumped suddenly onto his feet. He looked frantically, and semi-demandingly at his companions.
Growling, Sasuke shot back quickly, "I wish I knew!" while getting back onto his feet. There were faint thudding sounds from the other side of the stone walls and the ceiling was slowly but surely starting to give way. A particularly large slab of wall caved in near Sasuke and nearly sliced his shoulder off. "Shit, that thing's not giving up. Dammit!"
"Get us back out in the open, Sasuke," Iruka wisely admonished. "This earth wall is not going to hold for long, and the house is too cramped to fight in. The thing isn't going to give up, I think. We'll be caved in at this rate anyway."
Even as he spoke, the sounds grew progressively louder, and cracks began to show on the wall from the inside. More pieces of the roof fell down with dangerous, cracking sounds. Sasuke frowned and cursed. "Pick up anything you can use for a weapon, and the animals, and we'll break out from the other side. Hurry up!" He yelled, looking around the room quickly at the same time. Kakashi was a large dog, who probably could outrun the monster if he had to. Currently he stood with a wagging tail and a long, wagging tongue, signifying his readiness. Itachi, on the other hand...
"Where's Itachi?" Naruto's panicked voice rose above the din that was Iruka scouring the scene for usable weapons. "Itachi!"
In the chaos that followed, it was Kakashi's bark that attracted their attention to the large slab of ceiling that had fallen near Sasuke. Upon closer examination, they were aghast to find that the black cat was there, and one of his hind legs was wedged between the dislodged roof and the floor, rendering him immobile. The cat looked up impassively at the people before him, visibly shivering in pain. Quickly, though, he looked away, refusing to make a single sound. He did shoot a look at Kakashi, as if desperately trying to tell him to get the rest of the people away before it was too late.
"Itachi!" Naruto, however, missed the point entirely. "No! No!! We're not going away without Itachi! I refuse to go without Itachi!" He crouched towards the cat and glared behind his shoulders at the others, daring them to challenge his decision.
"Naruto!!" Sasuke's tone was admonishing. "This is not the time to be-" He stopped abruptly when Naruto flashed him an angry, bloodshot glare. Did Naruto's irises just /turn/ crimson?, the Uchiha questioned his eyesight. He shook his head to clear that vision out, and true enough, when he glanced at the boy again, he was staring into angry pools of blue instead of red. "Ah crap!" He cursed, Naruto's words last night invading his mind again. Naruto was someone who would rather suffer than to see someone precious to him suffer. It would do no good to argue with him at a crucial time like this.
Abruptly, the raven-haired boy grabbed Naruto's wrist and hoisted him to his feet. Before the blond could protest, Sasuke turned to Iruka and commanded, "Sensei! Get Itachi out from the rubble, then get them to somewhere safe! Naruto and I will distract the monster in the meantime!"
"What?!" Naruto screeched into his ear, causing him to almost release his grip on the blond. "Are you nuts?! No way am I going to-"
"Bloody hell! Just do it already!" Sasuke barked back, applying more force to his grip on the complaining blond's hand. "Stop arguing with me and help me!"
"Naruto!" It was Iruka, and he had crouched down to attend to the trapped Itachi. "Trust me! I'll get them both to safety by hook or by crook!"
In the background, the rumbling sound got louder and louder. Sasuke cursed and finally released the shocked blond's hand, glaring at him while saying, "Get your act together and follow me when you're ready!" Without waiting for a response, the young Chuunin clasped his hands together, facing the area where the huge knocking sounds were coming from. "Kai!" He said, and suddenly, the large chunk of mud wall that had previously been blocking the door dissolved into nothingness. The Uchiha bent his knees slightly. In the next instant, he was nothing but a puff of dust and a trail of footsteps fading into the distance.
The rumbling sounds ceased, and the ceiling of the house stopped trying to fall onto the ground. Naruto and Iruka stared in the direction Sasuke had last been seen going in, one gaping and one thoughtful.
Quickly, Iruka who broke the silence.
"Here," he pressed something cool and metallic into Naruto's hand, earning a stare of confusion from the man. "Naruto, remember the kunai you always used to dig your garden soil with?" He paused, and Naruto nodded.
"The bunai?"
"... Kunai," Iruka tried hard not to facefault. He pointed at the metallic thing in Naruto's hand. "It is a weapon - it works like a dart. And only ninjas can use it with efficiency. Naruto," Iruka squeezed the boy's hand encouragingly. "Teamwork is important for the shinobi - you need to trust your partner with all your life - and that means you have to believe whatever he says, even when it sounds impossible, and even when it doesn't always go the way you want it to." He looked seriously at Naruto in the eye. "Do you understand?"
The blond quickly looked away, an annoyed pout etched across his countenance. "Yeah," he mumbled.
"Good," Iruka smiled warmly at the boy. "Now get out there and kick some butt! I'll get Kakashi and Itachi to somewhere safe for sure."
The blond whipped around to stare at his sensei in disbelief. Slowly, though, the distrust and hesitation in his eyes melted away. He grinned, pocketing the kunai and striking a pose. "Yes, sir!"
The ponytailed man watched, proudly, as the bundle of energy he had seen grow from a boy to a teen dashed out of the house to join his comrade in the fight. A few moments of silence later, however, he turned his attention back to the black cat, still suffering under the slab of ceiling.
He had a mission to do here as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sasuke had briefly brushed by the humongous chimera-like humanoid and could smell death in its wake. The dissolving mud wall had caused the monster to lose its punching target. While it stumbled forward at the loss of balance, Sasuke took its moment of confusion to fly as quickly and as far away as he could.
Predictably, the creature turned as soon as it was able to and pursued Sasuke with inhuman speed. The Uchiha had yet to even come close to the borders of the forest when he could feel the thing close to his back.
Cleaving to the humming of pure instincts, Sasuke ducked and rolled, managing to avoid a lethal claw attempt at his jugular. Quickly tossing himself onto his feet, he shot a random amount of kunai and shuriken at his target, knowing that its big size would make it easy to hit. He had underestimated, however, the creature's astounding speed and constitution. Although a couple of sharp objects found their target, the remaining were deflected with an easy sweep of hand. Not to mention, the kunai and shuriken that had embedded themselves into the monster did not look like they were taking any effect at all. Still as fast as ever, the creature reappeared behind Sasuke and successfully dug its claws into the boy's neck.
It was to this scene that Naruto barged in.
"Sasuke!!!" He immediately cried out, panicked. He was about to rush over when a whirl of black knocked into him from the side and carried him into the trees. "Idiot, don't! It was just a Kawarimi!" The black blur had hissed. It took Naruto a while to finally realise that the whirl of black was warm, besides the fact that it could speak.
"Sasuke?" He had heard the satirical voice enough times to recognise it on first hear.
By then, they were safely situated somewhere in a tree, which had a clear view of the scene below them - the flesh golem thing turning its head around in all directions to try to locate its target. Sasuke took a few more kunai from his holsters and tied a net tightly to the holes looped around the hilt of the weapons. His Sharingan had snapped into place sometime in between running from the monster to snagging Naruto before he gave their position away, and he could tell that Naruto could not stop staring at it. Securing the net as quickly as he could, he purposely flashed an evil eye at Naruto, ordering, "The thing is going to find us soon - it goes by smell, not by sight. Do the Kage Bunshin to distract him and lure him as far away from the house as you can. We need to restrain it, then we can find its weakness and attack it from there!"
The blond shot his companion a vulpine grin. "Gotcha!" He quickly said, and formed the seals quickly. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
An eruption of smoke temporarily blinded the tree branch from outside view. Soon, however, the Naruto clones began flitting out of the fog in all directions, the sole purpose of luring the monster away retained in their minds.
"Come and get me, ugly duckling!" The Narutos had made faces at the faceless golem and then converged together towards a common destination. As fast as Naruto's clones were, being untrained ninjas at best, they were no match for an undead creature obviously brought to life by some unorthodox summon for the sole purpose of killing. They were caught up upon a short distance away from the house, at the large clearing just prior to the forest, and were wiped out in little puffs of smoke.
But by then, Sasuke was ready.
He had tailed the engrossed monster in the shadows, making doubly sure to use his activated Sharingan to sweep its form for weaknesses. He was disappointed that there were none on its back. Still clutching at a glimpse of hope, he leapt into the nearby trees and raced to meet the creature head-on. Before descending back onto the grassy terrain, he flung the kunai holding his makeshift net together at the thing, succeeding in stopping it from advancing. It would not hold for long, Sasuke knew, however, so he had to be quick in his evaluation. He landed softly on the ground and rapidly scanned the enemy.
He found two points of interest, before the malformed undead tore open the net and began howling for blood again. Taking his cue, he vanished back into the perimeter of the forest, racing from branch to branch near the edge, hoping to shake the creature of his back. The Sharingan faded back into normal black and he briefly wondered where Naruto was. He had to tell the blond about his analysis.
He had not needed to wonder for long, for from the corner of his eyes, where he had been observing the undead creature, a blur of yellow and orange caught his attention and forced him into a dead halt.
The blond dived towards the creature with an unintelligible warcry, and Sasuke felt obliged to gasp in sheer frustration. He wondered whether it would work if he shouted a warning to Naruto there and then. Apparently it was too late, for the boy had tried to punch the monster - missing by a large difference. The raven-haired teen felt like crying into his palms. Why was it that his teammates /never/ listened instructions?
The monster now had its full attention on the blond, who had tumbled unceremoniously onto the ground after his failed attack. Nevertheless, his recovery was amazingly quick. He leapt back onto his feet and donned a defensive pose, snarling angrily at the blank-faced undead.
There was a swift rush of air, and Naruto found Sasuke beside him in no time. "Bird-brain!" The darker-haired teen said immediately upon making his presence known. "I told you to wait for my instructions!"
"But you were taking so long!" Naruto whined, knowing that he did purposely disobey Sasuke's commands this time. "I wanna hit this thing back to where it came from and just get out the hell of here!"
They were forced to break formation when the creature came charging at them. Inertia was great as the thing was very large, though, and while the creature took its time to recover from its missed punch, Naruto and Sasuke quickly regrouped.
"Listen!" Sasuke hissed to his companion. "The Forbidden Scroll - that thing has it! That means if we defeat it, we'll accomplish our mission as well. Do you understand?"
It was shock that was reflected on Naruto's face at first, then disbelief. He frowned to indicate that he was pondering over the words just said, and eventually the boy brightened up with a beam. "All right! That's like killing two frogs with one snake, right?"
Sasuke blinked once at the phrase. Then his eyebrow twitched in frustration as he corrected, "Two /birds/ with one /stone/..."
"Incoming!" Naruto yelped, interrupting Sasuke's speech of indignation.
Quickly, they split up again, but not before Sasuke shouted, "The chakra eye in in the middle of its face, Naruto! Aim for that eye!"
A mass destruction of nature immediately followed, with flying soil and broken twigs decorating the stiff, late morning air. The undead creature was a formidable opponent, who seemed to run on limitless energy - but its one single flaw was slowly becoming evident. It was unable to utilise its chakra to do anything much except to fly a few powerful punches and to move at break-neck speed. Its lack of intelligence was probably what was keeping Naruto and Sasuke alive now, considering how relentlessly it attacked the boys. Still, there was no end to the battle in sight. Sasuke cursed under his breath when he was forced to hide in the forest again, watching as a few more Naruto clones distracted the creature. They were going to get nowhere at this rate.
He scanned the terrain quickly, and spotted a heap of dried wood stacked against each other on the far side of the forest. An idea sparked, but he had to either get the monster near the heap or get the heap near the monster - neither of it seemed very possible at the moment. Instincts directed him to duck to the right, which he did; narrowly missing getting hit by one of Naruto's Kage Bunshins. The Bunshin disappeared into a puffy white cloud, and Sasuke's eyes lit up.
"Naruto!!" He shouted, while bursting out of his leafy sanctuary. All Bunshins looked up at him, although only one replied.
"What the hell is it now? Can't you see that I'm busy?"
"Leave the thing to me! Get your ass over to that pile of firewood over there and bring them as close to this area as you can!" The raven-haired boy pointed at the woods at the far edge while landing onto the ground. "Hurry up and do it!"
"All right, dammit! You didn't have to shout!" Naruto snorted, and in the next second, was racing into the distance with his remaining clones.
Momentarily lost, the golem attempted to take off after Naruto, but was tripped by an unseen wire Sasuke had placed in his way after Naruto made for the firewood. "Oh no you don't," Sasuke said, moving at the same time to stand directly in front of the creature. "Your opponent is me."
The creature howled again, raising both its hands up to the skies and then crouching, ready to attack. Sasuke tensed, kunai in one hand and the other resting just above his shuriken holster. To his surprise, however, no further movement came from the flesh golem. He gulped inaudibly, a sense of dread invading upon his sixth sense. Something did not seem to be right.
"Uchiha Sasuke," a deadpan voice issued forth from the undead, and Sasuke almost dropped his kunai in surprise. "I see. So /you're/ the reason why my undead summon is taking so long to get rid of the Kyuubi." The thing laughed disgruntledly. "Stay out of this, Uchiha Sasuke. I'm only warning you once."
/So the sad excuse for a summon can talk.../ Sasuke mused silently to himself. /... without a mouth. Real amazing. Wait. What? Kyuubi? What the heck is that?/ He shook his head to get the random thoughts out of his mind, then clutched the kunai closer. "Since you're finally starting to show signs of having a brain, I'll just warn you right back," his voice sounded dangerous. "Nobody gets away with attacking innocent civilians. Nobody."
"Big words for a small boy," the eerie voice continued, and now the flesh golem rose to full height, towering over the teen. "Let us see how you fare against the might of a ninja far better than you in any field of expertise!" The boney fingers of the creature clamped shut against each other to form a seal.
"... ninja? You?" Sasuke wondered, his Sharingan catching everything the creature was doing and processing the possible ways of countering the Jutsu. He quickly formed the seals.
"Suiton, Suikoudan no Jutsu!"
The water projectiles began to form out of nowhere, even as Sasuke made his final seal, cursing silently to himself because he knew he was late and would get hit by something for sure. "Doton, Doshouheki no Jutsu!"
An onslaught of sand and soil shot up from the ground around Sasuke and began to build into an impenetrable barrier. The elements crashed with a fantastic sploshing sound and for a long while, only the sight of water attacking packed clay could be seen.
When the attack ceased, the undead perused at the sight before it much with displeasure.
The barrier of sand which was the Jutsu Sasuke had pulled, had not even been dented.
A bright, warm glow from above it caused the creature to glance upwards, just in time to catch scattered fire-flowers raining down upon him. Behind the rapidly approaching Housenka no Jutsu, he could see a rather wet looking Sasuke just recovering from the skill. If it could smile it would have. At least one of its water projectiles had hit the young ninja, that meant.
Several Housenka singed its flesh, but it did not so much as wince - not that Sasuke had expected it to. It was, after all, nothing but an unfeeling golem controlled by someone whose presence he could feel was in the vicinity. He knew, however, that if he could only attack the creature to such an extent that it was unable to move at all, then they could take the time to run away. Killing an undead was impossible, but rendering it immobile was at least thinkable. His eyes began scanning the terrain again, taking note that the logs were now no longer in the far distance. That meant that Naruto had moved it somewhere, right? Where was that idiot anyway?
He broke out of his worrying to see that the undead creature was now in the middle of yet another complicated set of seals. Cursing to himself, he raced to catch the final sequence with his Sharingan, knowing that there was a low possibility he could come up with a counter in time, but willing to try anyway. Quickly clasping his hands together, his heart raced when he saw that the creature had seemingly finally finished the hand seals.
"Ninpou, Kongou Saisei no Jutsu!" The monotonous voice uttered, and a ghastly blade began protruding out from the bowels of its chest. It lengthened and stretched, until Sasuke could finally discern that it was a long lance of sorts, with a handle made out of slimey, greenish things he wouldn't touch to save his life and a white blade that gleamed with a malicious aura - like it had a life of its own. He shuddered, an inner fear almost overtaking his form in the presence of the very personification of death. He didn't have enough chakra to go up against this thing anymore. He didn't know enough skills to counter its moves. He was not going to make it! And he could feel his knees going weak, his willpower slowly leaving him.
That is, until the angry voice of Naruto shook him from his reverie.
"Sasuke, bastard! HEY! I've been shouting at you for a million times now, are you listening to me at all?! HEY!!" The irritating voice was coming somewhere from his left, and it was completely ruining his composure. Even the enemy seemed inclined to tilt its head slightly in the direction of the sound to find out what it was. The raven-haired ninja sighed to himself and took his opponent's moment of slight distraction to bound towards Naruto's general direction.
"Finally!" The blond censured him with a glare when Sasuke came near him. "I thought you'd never hear me!"
"Idiot! Get down!" Sasuke swore and pushed Naruto on his shoulders, making him collapse on his butt painfully. The blond cursed with his whole life and shook a fist, meaning to kick Sasuke in the shin when a large, triangular blade thrust into the spot where Naruto had been standing. The blond gaped. He would have been skewered if Sasuke hadn't pushed him out of the way.
Quickly getting onto his feet, Naruto pushed himself as far away as he could from the undead creature, who now swung its large lance around for a second attack. Flipping backwards twice, he skidded to a halt beside Sasuke, who was behind the log pile, examining it with great interest.
"I did as you told me to, so what now?" Naruto tried to keep the irritation out from his voice. Sasuke's long silences always occurred before he did something strange or just downright stupid - or so, Naruto thought. He shrank back slightly when Sasuke pinned him with a 'i-know-what-you-are-thinking' glare. The Uchiha then turned to face the enemy, hands clasped in a hand seal.
"Stay away, Naruto, and get ready to attack after I'm finished with him. Remember to attack that eye in the middle of its head!"
Although wanting to ask Sasuke where the 'eye' was, because he sure as anything could not see any 'eye,' Naruto nodded and quickly bounded into hiding - just as he heard the first words of Sasuke's Jutsu.
"Katon, Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" A huge ball of red-hot fire desecrated the morning air, tinging it with the sour taste of destruction. The chakra flames licked greedily at the firewood Naruto had piled up messily, and the undead flesh golem was forced to stop in its step in the presence of such a wildly spreading fire. Flesh and fire just did not go hand in hand together.
"Thinking of tricking me with such a simple thing, youngling?" The dead voice of the undead mused, lowering its weapon to taunt the young Uchiha. "You still have a long way to go..."
He paused, because Sasuke's lips curled up into a knowing smirk. Just one shift in the seal he held and the fires began wavering into something else altogether. "Ryuuka no Jutsu!" Sasuke completed the seal and the large fire before him instantly reacted, churning into a colossal fire dragon, all the more powerful because of the fiery base it rose up from.
Before anybody could next blink, the dragon twisted and dived for the flesh golem. It opened its jaws and completely devoured the creature in the twinkling of an eye, lifting it back up into the air so that all that was left of the creature was now a burnt black mark on the ground.
Both Naruto and Sasuke watched with abated breaths as the regal looking dragon made of fire spat out something long - and it landed somewhere in the forest. Sasuke tensed. That must have been the Forbidden Scroll he had spotted hidden in the golem. The dragon then soared further and further into the horizon, governed by Sasuke's pre-programmed instructions to carry its prey as far away from them as they could. When finally, the final sparks of the glowing flame dissipated from their sight, Sasuke released his hand seal and sank onto his knees with a huge sigh.
He felt numb and knew that his chakra was not in good form presently. After the Tsukiyomi - which he had not really mastered and thus it was a skill that took up almost all his chakra, he had to face an undead enemy that could not be killed. When did his life descend into such misfortune? And he was only trying to get out of the country, too!
"Are you all right, Sasuke?" Naruto asked awkwardly, raw concern in his surprisingly quiet voice. The raven-haired boy glanced briefly at him and thought he could see pity in the blond's bright blue eyes. He frowned.
"I'm fine..." Sasuke quickly replied, struggling to his feet, not wanting to be in the sympathy of the blond. "Let's go help Iruka-sensei and the others-"
"That won't be necessary, a new presence entered into the clearing, rustling the grass with his slow and steady footsteps. "Naruto. Sasuke."
Sasuke shot one look into the direction of the man and was instantly guarded. Naruto, on the other hand, slowly smiled with genuine happiness. "Old guy!" He said, pointing to the village chief. There was a pause. "What do you mean?" Naruto's voice was filled with wonder. "Why shouldn't we go help Iruka-sensei?"
The gray-haired man laughed, his friendly mask still on his countenance. In one hand he held the Forbidden Scroll, which he must have collected from where the fire dragon had spat it out from. He stroked his beard gently, and still with an amiable face and tone of voice replied the ecstatic boy.
"Because he hates you. And he can't wait to hurt you. I'll bet he's killed your precious pets by now and left them mangled and bloody in your house? Why don't you take a look?"
The silence that followed was cold.
Sasuke was disgusted at how the man could smile like he was the happiest man on earth when verbally assaulting a boy who trusted him with his life. He could literally feel the shock emanating from Naruto. Slowly, it dissolved into anger, then disbelief, then frustration, and finally, distrust.
Naruto's eyes filled up with pain and betrayal. "You... you were just like every one else! You were just like them all too!!"
"Of course I was," the village chief was still smiling, and Sasuke felt his blood boil. "And Iruka-sensei was like that too. Oh my, you mean you didn't know? You couldn't possibly have felt that a wriggling worm like you could actually have people acknowledge you as a person at all? You belong right down there will all the people you have caused to die, child." Still with a smile.
"Iruka-sensei..." Naruto's face went blank for a while, then twisted with fury again. He broke away from his position beside Sasuke and turned towards the house with a mad sprint. There was something he had to verify there.
Something that would change the way he viewed life forever.
The chief stood smiling still, stroking his beard and nodding his head. Sasuke frowned at him. "You're a piece of human trash," the Uchiha enunciated coolly. "A perfect waste of healthy, breathable air."
The old man twitched slightly, but it was covered up soon. "You youngsters know nothing."
"I know where to throw my garbage next time," Sasuke shrugged, "in your mouth. That's all that's necessary. You're a waste of my breath. Go away," he glared and vanished with a smoking tele-transportation Jutsu.
The old man maintained his calm, although his anger was slowly but evidently building.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Naruto was just ten steps away from the perimeter of the building he called a home when a blur of white smoke and black cloth blocked him from further movement. He stumbled clumsily backwards with a yelp and saw that it was just Sasuke. Holding a hand to his heart, he screeched, "Don't stand in my way, bastard!"
"What way of yours am I standing in?" Sasuke replied stoicly, raising an eyebrow. "/You/ are getting in our way. Hurry up and get back there so we can kick that old idiot's butt together."
"I-..." Naruto opened his mouth but could not finish his sentence. "I... You- you don't understand! I need to get back to do something! Get lost!" He yelled, and quickly tried to walk by Sasuke. He was almost completely clear of Sasuke's shoulder when a hand shot out and held him back, gripping firmly onto his wrist.
"Go back to do what?" Sasuke's voice was soft, and Naruto tensed. As he had overtaken Sasuke, they now stood back to back, Sasuke's grip on the hand was the only thing connecting them. "Check up on Iruka-sensei? See if he's ran away like the stupid old man said?" The blond winced with guilt, but the Uchiha was not yet done. "I thought you were a better person than that, Naruto - believing in the lie of the enemy-"
"You don't understand!" Naruto interjected, voice shaking. "My whole life! My whole damned life I've been living like a fugitive! I've been beaten and bullied for things I never did! I never had anyone I could trust..." He broke down. "I thought I... I thought that I'd still have Iruka-sensei and the old man no matter what everyone else did... but... but I... they..."
The Uchiha's face remained unreadable, a hard glint in his eye. "Naruto," he said sharply, voice determined. "You're right." He said, causing the blond to look up in wonderment. "You've lost one person you could trust. And anyway that old man, I never trusted him to begin with. But Naruto," Sasuke unknowingly gripped the blond's wrist tighter. "If you go into your house now, and follow what that felon asked you to do then you..." Sasuke paused. "... you'll lose one more person you can trust. And not by any fault of his - but by the sheer fact that you never trusted him to begin with."
He could feel the blond shake with hesitation and felt a pang of guilt for his harsh reasoning. Quickly, he squashed that feeling and let Naruto's hand go. "I trust you, Naruto," were his final words to the boy before stepping towards the old man in the distance, ready to do battle with a burning new motivation.
When he was within hearing distance of the village chief, he stopped walking. "What the hell is your problem with Naruto anyway," he spat, not wanting to mince words. "Yes, he's a bumbling idiot and he plays stupid tricks on you all the time, but if that qualifies him for eternal damnation then I think more or less everyone in this village ought to be chained up and tortured - yourself included."
"He has done things that are much more terrible that, of course," the chief replied, still poker-faced. "Speaking of terrible things, aren't you a terrible person yourself?" He pointed at Sasuke, who was taken aback at the sudden accusation. "You were the one who went around slaughtering the people of the village and sending them into insanity weren't you?" He scoffed, not giving Sasuke a chance for a rebuttal. "I thought the Uchiha clan was a noble bloodline who wouldn't stoop to such dirty deeds, but it looks like I was wrong! I should write a report about this to the Hokage... Maybe the Uchiha clan is good only for their eyes!" The village chief punched his opened palm. "Can you imagine how beautiful the Sharingan would look, encased in a glass of preservative liquid, hanging from my ceiling wall?"
Anger shot up to Sasuke's head like a rising tidal wave - fast and unstoppable. "Why you-" he growled in a loud, dangerous voice, hands on his holsters, ready to toss weapons out at random. His father had always told him his emotional nature would get him into trouble one day, but he was too fired up to care at the moment. Things began to take place in slow-motion. He had his weapons out in no time and ran towards the old smirking man, ready to slash him into thousands of tiny pieces of flesh.
"He didn't do it!"
The loud, bold declaration made Sasuke jerk to a stop. Both Sasuke and the village chief glanced up at the source of the sound, neither having noticed the presence of the loud blond atop a large tree branch until he spoke. When he saw that he had their undivided attention, Naruto grinned.
"Sasuke didn't kill anybody!" The blond repeated, and this time he leapt from the branch onto the ground. He quickly ran to stand beside Sasuke and pointed at the old man, his flambouyant, careless grin back in full force. "I'd bet you did all the killing and then so you could push the blame to Sasuke, right? Huh?"
In turn, Sasuke was properly surprised. All this while, he had thought that Naruto - along with everybody else in this place, was convinced that he was guilty of the murders. He felt a small smile tug at his lips at the trust his friend was giving him. But he kept his solemn outlook and bapped the blond upside the head instead.
"What the hell was that for?!" Naruto held his head and glared at the darker-haired teen.
"Nothing," Sasuke replied. "I just felt like doing it."
A chuckle from before them drew their attention away from each other. The old man shook his head and laughed bitterly. "What a touching reunion. However, I hope you have not forgotten that I still have the Scroll that you are looking for," the old man snarled. "And you won't be able to get it from me with your abilities!"
"We'll see about that!" Naruto gritted his teeth and formed the seals. Before Sasuke could stop him, he multiplied into a thousand other Narutos with a loud, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
The village chief was properly shocked at the sight before him. In his shock he had great difficulty deflecting a few of the messy moves the Naruto clones were throwing at him. Grasping at this element, Sasuke snapped his Sharingan into action and quickly formed his own set of hand seals. "Doton, Chikagoku no Jutsu!"
The ground beneath the old man opened up and swallowed him up to his knees, rendering him immobile. One Naruto clone quickly caught the cue and slapped the Scroll away from the distracted man, succeeding in knocking it out of his hands.
As they watched, yet another Naruto clone burst into the scene and stole the Scroll from the heavens, where it had been tossed to. The clone grinned, then turned tail into the forest with the Scroll, disappearing into the undergrowth in the twinkling of an eye.
"Stop!" The elderly man stretched a hand out in the direction of the clone, but was too late. Not that the Naruto clone would have listened to him anyway. With another seal, Naruto made all his other clones vanish and quickly he regrouped with Sasuke.
The older man gave an evil leer, hands coming up to form a seal. "You think you can stop me with such menial tricks? You obviously haven't seen enough of the world, children."
While Naruto was confused at the chief's words, Sasuke visibly started. He quickly grasped his fingers together in yet another seal, and before the man could make another move, conjured a large, sand-packed prison cell around him, just as the chief summoned a geyser of water from nowhere to attack at the sandy locks on his feet.
He instantly saw that the water could not completely penetrate the sandy cell, and immediately dropped his amicable facade. "You little busybody!" He snarled at the Uchiha. "Stay out of our affairs! It's got nothing to do with you!"
"Not when you're trying to kill an innocent civilian!" Sasuke shouted right back. He made another set of seals quickly and concentrated, eventually saying, "Gyouko!". A heavy aura surrounded the prison cell the elder was trapped in, and he snarled even more when he realised what Jutsu had just been used.
"You..." he narrowed his eyes at Sasuke, who was beginning to wobble on his feet. "I underestimated you..."
"What did you just do?" Naruto quickly turned to Sasuke to ask.
"I fixed the position of the sand with some chakra signature," Sasuke replied, taking in huge breaths to try to calm his nerves. Then he smirked. "Unless I die or I choose to dispel the signature, then he stays in there."
A look of sheer awe decorated Naruto's face. "That's so cool! You gotta teach me that sometimes!"
"First you get your Katon skills right!" Sasuke barked back. "Then we talk about learning other Jutsus, you little blockhead?!"
"I'm not a blockhead!" The blond instantly retorted. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I'm gonna be the next Hokage! Then all of you will get some major ass-kicking from me! And-"
"Naruto..." Sasuke's voice sounded dangerous, even to the blond, who shrank back slightly. Perhaps the three gleaming kunais he held in his right hand added much to the scary-Sasuke effect. "... one more word from that damn mouth of yours and I will personally make sure that these three sharp and pointy things you see in my right hand will undertake the grand task of severing the speech muscle from your mouth with the most bloody and painful way you can ever imagine." He slowly walked closer to Naruto, who slowly walked back. "Did I make myself clear?!"
"Ye-... !!" The blond caught his mouth with hand and quickly and nodded fervently. Sasuke was certainly scary with sharp, pointy things. He could kick his ass later when the Uchiha was in a better mood, but for now, Naruto very much preferred to have his tongue remain in his mouth, thank you very much. At this unspoken truce, they both turned to stare at the currently chuckling village chief in the sandy cell.
"Your antics are well played out indeed," he was saying, "and if I hadn't known any better I would have fallen for your innocent charms. But you are both wicked people, black in the heart - and you both must be removed for the good of all," the calmness in which the elder had said this unsettled both boys. "Do you really think you can stop me, even if you should place me in this cell? You are mistaken! I have a lot more people on my side than you have on yours!" His hands slowly clasped each other to form a seal. "And I have a lot more undead creatures on my side than you do, too..."
With a sudden tremour the earth began to shake in its very foundations. Howling sounds grew louder and louder with each shake, until finally, a few trees rustled at the forest edge and subsequently snapped like twigs.
The monster thundered into the clearing again, beating its burnt chest with furor. In one hand, it still held clasped, the slightly charred lance it had been using prior. The handle was also singed, but the blade gleamed brighter than ever. Both Naruto and Sasuke gulped to themselves.
Although, looking on the bright side of things, they no longer had to deal with its reek and smell, nor did they had to see tingles of flesh dangling off the undead thing everytime it moved. It was now just a piece of charred black pork liver. In fact, it /smelled/ like a piece of charred black pork liver. Not that either of them were going to try to find out, anyway. The monster's single eye in the middle of its face was now visible to the world where it had previously been hidden by layers of grime and soot. The duo did the smart thing by quickly breaking formation and running away to hide in the perimeter of the forests again.
Or - Sasuke /tried/ to do the smart thing by doing that, completely forgetting that as Naruto was untrained, such a thought as retreating then counter-attacking had probably never crossed his mind before.
And he found that out only when he glanced into the clearing from his hiding place and realised that Naruto was still there.
He groaned inwardly.
"Eh? Sasuke?" Naruto looked around himself to find that his companion was long removed from his immediate presence. "Sasuke??"
The old man gave a short chuckle, and the tall monster stomped closer to Naruto. "He fled from you, Naruto," he was saying, "just as everybody else has. You're all alone in this world, Naruto. You have no companions at all. Why don't you just die? You'll save us all a lot of trouble."
The blond's shoulders remained tensed, and from where he was, Sasuke was unable to see his expression. /If that little idiot dares believe what that jerk said, I'll twist his neck so hard that he'll be walking backwards for the rest of his life!/ Was his internal decision, as he watched his counterpart carefully for a reaction.
He was not disappointed, for soon Naruto's shoulders began to shake and quiver. Then, without warning, he let out a laugh to the heavens. Just one, short chortle, and he was done. He pointed at the elder, who had turn sombre-faced, and grinned while saying, "I've had enough of believing anything you tell me now. I'm clear on where I stand. Sasuke may have fled like a frightened dog with his tail between his legs for all I care, but he's still a lot better than a bastard like you!"
In his hiding spot, Sasuke desperately resisted the urge to go out and strangle Naruto to death there and then.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" was the loud shout that gave Sasuke the helping hand. He observed as the Narutos began to circle the charred creature, attacking it from all sides. Briefly he wondered how much chakra it took for each Kage Bunshin - since it was a high-level skill he had never quite seen the scroll for it. He continued, though, observing the fight and biding his time.
Naruto was not exactly having an easy time going solo (albeit with many clones) against the large, charred undead. Although the burning of its skin made sure that Naruto could now see the big eye that was the weakness, it also meant that the monster's skin was hard and flakey, and even more impossible to pierce through than before. It swung its large lance at the blond, almost decapitating him. Naruto made a funny face and ran behind his clones, trying to seek a good chance. Where was Sasuke when you needed him anyway?
"When you want something done you really gotta do it yourself, dammit!" He finally got fed up and waiting and dived for the being from behind. He clamped himself rightly onto the creature's back and grabbed its head, lifting it up and holding it there no matter how hard the creature thrashed. "All right, bastard, wherever you are, you better come out and do your thing now!"
"Hn," the soft but recognisable voice of Sasuke drifted into Naruto's ears. "I thought you'd never ask."
Immediately the shine of a couple of kunai forced Naruto to look away. Sasuke had descended from his hiding spot and now raced towards the enemy, setting off two kunai for a start to see if he could hit the thing at long range. Although Naruto held on to its head, the creature still managed to deflect the two weapons away with its large weapon. The blond yelped at the sudden movement, almost getting throw off in the event. "Hurry the hell up, Sasuke!"
"Just hold on to it, okay?" The miffed ninja was cross. He grappled with the string that tied the Fuuma Shuriken to his back and won, unfolding the large shuriken and flinging it at the creature.
Before it reached, though, it split into two - the first one diving for the creature's head and the second one following close behind. Instinctively the creature repelled the one that was headed for its face, but that was a mere Bunshin and it vanished into a puff of smoke. The real Fuuma Shuriken sliced through its right ankle, forcing it onto one knee with a howl.
"Naruto! Don't let go of its head!" Sasuke retrieved a massive amount of kunai and shuriken to clasp in his two hands while dashing towards the creature that was howling at its lost ankle.
"I'm trying, you idiot! I'm trying!!" Was the loud and angry reply, as Naruto attempted to strangle the golem into submission from behind. The barrage of weapons came quickly - Naruto hadn't even seen Sasuke throw it. But he held still and attempted to navigate the undead creature's head so that at least some would the bullseye.
And hit the bullseye it did.
Two kunai successfully embedded themselves into the large eye on the creature's face, and this time the golem howled in what must have been absolute pain. It swung its lance around wildly, knocking into Sasuke, who was unable to stop his fast dash on time to avoid the move. The raven-haired boy was thrown back into the forest, and his descent also meant the destruction of two large trees.
"Sasuke!" On the back of the creature, Naruto cried out. Now that his concentration was splat, the golem expeded no effort at all in throwing him off its back, which it did. The blond landed on the grassy floor with a loud thump, but other than that he was unscratched.
He watched in half fascination as the creature tore at its face with its hand, trying to pull the kunai out but not succeeding for some reason. It still refused to let go of its lance, however, and was now doing a dance of desperation around the clearing. Deciding that it was only a matter of time before the thing expired by itself, Naruto quickly got onto his feet and ran to where Sasuke was thrown to.
"Hey, bastard!" Naruto slowed down in his dash a distance away from the large area that had been pulverized, when he could see one of Sasuke's legs sticking out from the destroyed foliage. "You alive?"
The leg twitched, but that was about all.
"You'd better be alive!" Naruto quickly scrambled over broken wood and torn leaves, until he came to the large pit where Sasuke was lying in. The raven-haired boy coughed weakly and opened an eye to glare at the blond.
"Don't curse me, dead-last." He spat a twig out from his mouth and sat up, slapping his cheeks to try to keep his consciousness. Not only was his chakra almost all spent, he was going to be waking up to several big bruises tomorrow into next week. Seeing the concerned face of Naruto, he stretched a hand in his direction. "What are you waiting for? Help me up, you moron."
The blond snapped out of his anxiety and snarled, "I'm not a moron!" Though he did help Sasuke to his feet.
"Where is that thing?" The raven-haired boy asked suspiciously, glancing around the uncomfortably empty and quiet clearing.
"Huh?" Naruto turned around to look as well. "It's right there-... hey wait a minute..." The blond made his mouth into an 'O' shape. "It was there when I-"
There was nothing but the soft sound of something treading on grass, before the howls of the creature was immediately upon the duo's ears. How it had gotten there so fast without anybody noticing was a mystery neither could figure out. In the shade of the late morning sun, the creature nevertheless cut a formidable presence, lance lifted in readiness, from where it stood behind Naruto.
As for Naruto, the only thing he saw when he turned around was the swift descent of the gleaming blade.
And the spattering of a lot of blood.
... blood,
that was not his.
The pause thereafter was painful.
For the first time in a long while, Naruto was at an absolute loss for words.
There he stood, the talented ninja of some strange academy, a strong, powerful presence in his otherwise boring life; a noisy companion who entered his life just a few days ago - full of dreams and desires, with more than enough ability to fulfil them, having a future brighter than the gleaming afternoon skies.
Impaled on the sharp side of a large blade that was meant for him.
Him. The jinx. The bastard child nobody cared about. The boy with no power, no future, no hope; not worth befriending.
Why?
Before Naruto's mind could supply him an answer, Sasuke coughed and breathed with evident difficulty. That effectively snapped the blond out of his trance, and he leapt to his feet with uncharacteristic shouting. "SASUKE!!" He mouthed, wishing to run to the raven-haired boy's side but frozen on the spot for some reason. The Uchiha was unable to reply, still coughing away, one hand over his mouth and another clutching the offensive lance tightly. "Sasuke-"
The loud roar from the monster disrupted what Naruto had been about to say or ask, and it attempted to regain control of its lance from where it had embedded it into Sasuke.
As Naruto watched on in horror and amazement, the raven-haired boy held his ground and did not budge, until a particular moment in time when it seemed like the creature was about to give up the lance in favour of squashing Sasuke to death instead, the dark-haired ninja reacted.
So quickly, that if Naruto had blinked, he would have missed everything.
When the charred golem loosened its hold on the lance, just slightly, Sasuke grabbed the handle of the weapon that was protruding out from him and twisted it into a firm hold. He then knocked the large blade out of the golem's hands, surprising it so that it threw both charred hands up towards the sky. Taking that brief moment in his stride, Sasuke dashed forward, and still with the blade wedged somewhere in between his chest and stomach, thrust the other end of the lance through the thick skin of the undead creature, effectively pinning it to the large tree behind as well.
Sasuke grunted in pain when the effect of his action caused the blade to go deeper into his body. He ignored it and through some miracle of vague, blurry Sharingan vision saw that the creature was thrashing about before him, stuck between the tree behind him, and Sasuke, with his own weapon running through him like a stick of yakiniku.
To Sasuke's dismayal, he could hear Naruto's incessant rambling from somewhere behind, and he groaned inwardly. He was not quite ready to answer the blond's questions yet, which he was sure would include something along the lines of 'why the hell did you take the blow for me you stinking bastard?!'. Fearing the noisy blond would not listen to his next instructions if he did not at least give an answer, though, he snapped, "Shut up, Naruto! My body just moved by itself, okay? Now get your ass over here and help me!"
There was deathly silence following his outburst, and Sasuke trusted that it meant good things. Still throbbing with the pain of a sharp blade tearing him from inside out, he clasped his hands together in what he hoped would be his final Jutsu for the day.
"Kanashibari no Jutsu!"
The monster trembled, then stopped struggling. It still stood standing, muscles spasming in protest at the chakra body bind, but unable to dispel it if it could not get its hands together to form a seal. Slowly, however, its hands began to move towards the handle of the lance that was buried in his body.
Sasuke's eyes widened, and he tried to pour more chakra into his Jutsu while shouting, "Naruto! Get your lazy ass over here and throw something at his eye! We just need one more and he'll be gone! Don't you dare miss!!"
"Shut up already, Sasuke, I know what to do!" Naruto's irritated voice came from somewhere behind him, and he felt a movement of air that was Naruto leaping over his shoulders to get a clear shot at his target. A sharp, dark object flew at tremendous speed towards the golem, who was too busy struggling to regain hold of its weapon to notice the flying weapon. When it did pay attention, though it was too late.
The kunai found its spot, and buried itself deeply into the eye of the monster, alongside the two other kunai already there.
There was a notable pause, before the creature launched into chaos. It howled in a voice so loud and unworldly, Naruto was sure the entire village would be attracted to the area in fearful curiosity. Speaking of which, the fact that no one else had come after all the noise were being made did bother him, although it could have been an order from that wily old man currently trapped in a sandy prison. At that thought, Naruto's heart contracted in pain. Quickly, he tried to focus on current, more important matters instead.
Sasuke, on the other hand, had a lot more on his mind. For example, he noticed that his Kanashibari was no longer having a strong enough effect on the desperate monster, trying to break out of the bind to treat to his fatal wound. That meant that if the creature was going to start tossing around in pain, then he, who was connected on the other side of the lance embedded in the monster, was going to get torn apart as well. He terminated the the Jutsu and steeled himself.
Then with a quick step backwards, he pulled away from the large blade, biting his lips so that he would not cry out in pain. His stoic silence usually reassured his companions that he was all right, but the massive amount of blood that poured out from the gaping wound on his chest immediately after his act was now going to serve to prove otherwise. He bumped into Naruto unceremoniously, and could hear the blond screaming something in his ear. Still in instincts-mode, however, Sasuke's Sharingan flashed brightly at the staggering creature before them, taut and wary.
Released from the chakra binding and from being pined to the tree, the monster took a few experimental steps forward, clawing at its face. It managed to clasp onto the kunais embedded there and pulled them out with a loud holler, some black liquid oozing out of its source of life, which the sharp objects had punctured. It took a sniff and quickly hurled the kunais in the direction of the boys, who were too distracted with the heat of the battle to notice; or at least, Naruto was. When he did notice, however, the kunai were just a few inches away from running a hole through his brain, and he gasped in shock.
That gasp was knocked out together with the wind in him when Sasuke slammed into him blocked him bodily from the kunai. As Naruto fell onto the ground with a loud THUD, he saw that Sasuke had knocked a couple of incoming kunai away but could not deal with the final one, which was now an accessory on his right chest. Staggering, the dark-haired ninja flung the remaining of his shuriken and kunai in the undead's direction, and while some cut it further in its eye, the others flew around it and fastened it to the tree behind with the invisible strings the Uchiha clan was known for using.
The gasping Uchiha fell to the ground, hanging onto his last vestiges of consciousness. "Naruto..." his voice sounded raspy and weak even to himself. "... get the lance... finish the thing!"
The blond only took one moment to stare, then nodded quickly in grim determination. He dashed towards where the creature had dropped its weapon and picked it up, glaring at the monster that had been the climax of the hell that was fifteen years of his life. He stood in front of the writhing thing silently, pensively.
Then, without a word, he raised his arms and thrust the blade into the already broken eye of the undead.
The creature immediately dropped limp in its captivity, its own weapon protruding sardonically out from its lifesource. Naruto frowned at it for only a while more, then hurried over to where Sasuke was lying sideways, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
Kneeling beside the Uchiha, Naruto's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the once proud and aloof teen, broken and battered on the ground. Although the blond was no expert on trauma and injury, he had been on the receiving end of it enough times to know when bad was bad. He also knew; having seen it himself, that the large blade had run through Sasuke like it was a poker running through a bale of loose hay. The Uchiha bled profusely from the wound by the lance, although he also sported cuts and bruises on various other parts of his body. Naruto gritted his teeth, anger suddenly rising from within him.
"Why the hell did you do that for!!?" He screeched, not caring that Sasuke winced at his volume. "I don't need your help! I don't need anyone to help me! Just mind your own business next time!! I can take care of myself, dammit!" While he was yet rambling, Sasuke gave a mirthless laugh, which irked Naruto even more. "I mean it, damn you! Take me seriously for once!!"
The darker-haired teen made as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind in the last minute. He shook his head and stifled a muffled groan of pain, trickles of cold sweat running down his sheet-white face. Panicked, Naruto went closer and shook his companion slightly by his shoulders. "Sasuke... Sasuke! Sasuke!! Don't fall asleep, come on!" He touched his hand and almost shrank back in shock at how cold it was. "Sasuke!!"
On his side, the Uchiha's thoughts were running as quickly as he knew he was losing his breath. He had used up too much chakra - and was losing too much blood. He had a basic regeneration Jutsu on his body, but even that was proving to be of no use. He slowly watched his very life went out of him, and wondered about the grass he was lying on. He wondered why the skies were so clear, so bright, and why the breeze was so gentle, so kind. He wondered if he should say something to shut the yapping blond beside him up. He wondered if Iruka-sensei and the animals got safely out of the house. He wondered if the sly old village chief was going to harm Naruto when the sandy prison Jutsu dissolved upon his death.
He wondered if anyone would cry when he was gone.
He wondered, if anyone cared.
A sudden coughing fit wracked through his body, and he used the last of his strength to try to at least sit up - hoping that it would keep him awake. A warm hand circled his shoulder and helped him in that task, all this while as he could do nothing but cough up more blood. Eventually he slumped against the body of that warm hand - evidently Naruto's, at the final boundaries of his energy, too tired to do or say anything else.
Something warm stirred within him. He felt a great sense of achievement none of his prior missions had ever given him before. But he could no longer recall what he had done. He was not even sure if that blurry figure he was staring at was Naruto at all. He was still making a lot of noise, so he probably was Naruto. Little idiot never knew when and how to shut up.
Beyond the blond's anguished chatter were the sounds of footsteps of a few people. Sasuke tensed mentally at what he hoped was not danger. A familiar looking face with warm, brown hair and a recognisable ponytail came into his line of sight, worry written all over his face. Sasuke's gut, which had effectively taken over his brain for central nerve control decided that this person was not someone dangerous, and he sighed. As if sensing that the danger phase was finally over, he felt his Sharingan recede back into nothing. He closed his eyes and was immediately bombarded with the shearing pain of torn muscles and pierced internals. Adrenaline had blocked him from feeling much pain previously, but now that the worst was seemingly over, the pain began to spread all over him uncomfortably.
A warm hand ghosted over his forehead and turned his palm over, probably trying to find a pulse reading. Sasuke would have laughed and told whoever that was that it was useless - if he had the energy. Instead he coughed and sputtered more blood out from wherever it was in his body that still had blood left, causing the people around him to go into a panic. But what they did no longer mattered. What they said he could no longer hear.
He could only hear his own heart beating, his own pained breathing, and his own life, as it slowly flowed out from within him.
He could not even hear himself, when he spoke.
"So many..." Sasuke's voice was soft, subdued. "... so many things I... wish I could... ask him... aniki..." A cough. "... why he left the village... made us all so sad... was there anything I did that he was ever proud of?" Bemused tone. "He was so strange... so strange... they all said he was strange... but he was still my aniki... If only... If only..."
A bloodied hand reached out to touch Naruto's shoulder gently, and the blond started, having been enraptured by Sasuke's broken words until now. The raven-haired boy's glazed eyes regained a bit of life, before it was snuffed out again.
"If only... I'd known you earlier... I think... you would have been..."
Naruto had to strain to really hear Sasuke's final words, and when he did, he wondered if what he had heard were indeed true, or if they were just a figment of his imagination.
"... I think you would have been a great friend..."
The remaining words trailed, and Sasuke no longer responded to Naruto's brief shakings. Iruka, who had freed the animals and had joined Naruto immediately thereafter, desperately held on to whatever healing Jutsu he knew to salvage the young Uchiha's life. Naruto could feel, distinctly, his companion - the closest thing he ever had for a friend, relax against him.
Going limp and unmoving.
And while many would remember that day to be a rather normal day of beautiful weather,
Naruto would always remember it to be an ugly day of great loss and tremendous pain.
"SASUKE!!!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Part 6 of 7
2/6/2004
tougenkyou . net / xd
nyao. what do the jutsus mean? mrrr, you can figure it out yourself by reading about what it does and what effect it has. XD no, really. you can! try it! XD XD XD