Azidothymidine is AZT. It's the drug, which I believe slows down the
effects of the HIV. BTW, I don't know anyone with AIDS and don't have lots
of info, only basics.
Oh
Disclaimer: The character's opinions of AIDS are not shared by the author
and are to be applied to all people with AIDS. People with AIDS can live
happy lives and be very healthy for a long time. My characters are just sad
cause they're those types of people.
Disclaimer 2: Naruto is not mine.
Naruto: 10th year
I'm coming home. After all these years, I'm homeward bound. Home, where my escaping. Home, where my music's playing. Home where my love lies waiting silently for me. Yea right. I'm not going home for any reason like that. I've given up on my dream to become hokage because I'm going home to die.
I've stopped taking the pills that's why I'm dying. Maybe I can get one more good fight before I go or maybe I can die in peace. Either way seems good. I just don't want to be alone anymore.
I don't know what made me stop taking the pills, I just did. A complete subconscious decision thus proving I have a subconscious. Whoopie. It has been interesting to watch myself deteriorate. I don't think I've felt this weak in a very long time. I wonder what Sasuke would think if he saw me like this. Would he smirk and tell me I'm dead last again? Would I respond?
I think I lost my ability to speak. I haven't in about four years. Strange how people used to think I was loud. Once you stop speaking its as if it is impossible to. I don't even think my vocal chords work any more.
I'm a mile away from Konoha now; I can see it down the road. I wonder if it has changed too. Maybe it is kinder, but I can't see that from here. From a distance it is still the same. Maybe a bit taller, maybe a bit brighter with new paint, but all in all the same. Hokage mountain still stands tall only boasting a new face of it. Tsunade has been immortalized on it. The old hag. I miss her.
I run the last leg to the village and hide in the bushes. My mission: to get over the wall without being detected. Maybe I can go in the normal way, no, too normal for me. Need a challenge. I grab a camouflage cloth, one of the wall. I stick all my chakra into my back so I'll stick and whenever they aren't looking my way I inch up. I could get over quicker, but that would be less fun. I watch my chakra so it resembles that of a squirrel or something. They won't even look my way.
I'm over, success at last. I'm going to blend in, something that used to be hard for me but now I'm practiced at it. I can blend in with any crowd. Back when I got restless I worked as a pseudo assassin. There were rumors that I'd come out of nowhere and attack. I didn't actually kill anyone. Cripple them for life yea, but not kill. Ten years of isolation and hasn't changed that.
The village is still the same. Everything is the same. Without you the ground thaws, the rain falls, the grass grows, children play, the earth turns, the sun burns but I'm dying without you. Sasuke, it's all the same except for me, I'm dying without you.
The site of Tsunade's office distracts me from my thoughts. I wonder if I can sneak in without anyone noticing. I'm going to go in the normal way. I walk in the door as if I'm just waiting around for orders and disappear into the bathroom, changing into my old ANBU outfit. How I hate to put it back on! I join a group of ANBU's heading upstairs and tag along. How unobservant they are. Back in my day they would have all attacked me with kunai by now. Ack! They're turning another way! I leap out the nearest window and hang on. I climb slowly up the rest of the way, careful to stay in the tower's shadow. Slinging onto the windowsill and into her office is easy. Have I gotten better or is security here horrible?
"Hold it. You move like one of my ANBU but I know you're not. Tell me who you are," a female voice demands. I turn around to see Tsunade holding a kunai to my throat. She still looks the same as she always did. Now she looks younger than I do. All the effect of time has taken no toll on her youthful appearance. All hail the queen of youth. I sigh and take off my mask revealing a cloth covering my face much like Kakashi's. All she can see are my eyes. She looks quizzically at me, wondering who I am.
"Red eyes. Unusual. You sneak in here in an ANBU outfit and do so quietly. You have red eyes. But you're not..." she trails off.
"Sas...Sasuke," I sputter, my first word since I last screamed his name in anguish four years ago. I cleared my throat, the ability to talk returned. "You're losing your touch old hag." I take out the necklace she gave me all those years ago, still around my neck.
"Naruto?" she asks. I nod silently. She keeps the kunai up, but visibly relaxes. Then with a clang it drops to the floor and her arms are around my neck. "You brat! You scared us so much! You made me send Hunter- nins after you!" She pulls back and resumes her defensive pose, remembering that I deserted the village, that I'm a missing nin and a potential threat. "Why did you come back?"
"To die," I tell her softly. With a tug my facemask comes down along with my hood. I can almost feel my eye color changing back to be the blue ringed with red.
"From what?" she asks cautiously. She takes inventory of me, sees my thinness from not eating and my deterioration. "Naruto, I'm going to have to put you under arrest. You're a missing nin. I can't just pat you on the back and welcome you with open arms." I nod but feel my mood dropping. What could I expect? "I'll tell them you're sick and get you to the hospital."
"I don't need to..." I start and the world goes black. Memory seeps through my veins. I feel myself becoming weightless and empty, sinking into the oblivion of peace. I dream of him, holding me in his arms, in the arms of the angel. I can feel myself flying far, far away from all this. He holds me and comforts me. I'm in the arms of the angel; I find only comfort here.
Sasuke:
On the road again. What else am I do to? I am a like the rounin, no master, no where to go and no purpose. What am I to do?
I train now, any possible time when I don't travel where my feet take me. If I don't I start to think.
I wonder if he's dead, if he's sick or if he's suffering. I am walking home, for I have no where else to go. No where else to have a claim to, not even a weak one. I can remember neither any place I stopped in my journey nor any man I killed. I feel so empty but then I always have. He was the only one who made it all go away. I close my eyes and dream of him. He's radiating like the sun, chasing away all my fears and doubts. He's filling the emptiness with warmth and joy. He's older now in my mind's eye, mature. The years have been kinda to him; the disease hasn't taken hold of his youthful boy. He's still the boy of seventeen only with a wisdom about him even though now he's twenty-six like I am. Does he think of me as I do him? Does he regret walking out on me like a coward? Is he even still alive? Has he fallen to an enemy or to sickness? I don't think so, somehow I know that's not true, but I can't tell for sure. One foot in front of the other. I don't come in triumphantly. I come into my hometown beaten and broken, the last of the Uchiha ready to admit defeat at last. I trudge along the path. Just one more step, I tell myself over and over again. I can make it. In truth I come home triumphant. I accomplished my goal for setting our, or one of them at least. Itachi, my most hated brother, is dead. A battle fought, many times each ended in him laughing over me until the last time when I stood over him. It was a sharingun battle, both of us copying moves quickly from each other as soon as they were shown to us. We were matched, him having the slight advantage. Then I remember Naruto, his willpower and his need to succeed. In secret I always wanted to be like him. I always wanted to be able to prevail through all the trials like he did. I felt as if he was with me. He had killed Ochimaru for me so now I could kill Itachi with no hindrance. Walking away from the last battle, with my brother's body burning to ash behind me, broke me more than the battle itself. I had to rest for a month afterward, but the hopeless look on his face when I gave the final blow imprinted itself on my soul. Naruto never liked killing. I believe he only did it once in all the years I knew him and he mourned the man diligently for years afterward, the death leaving its mark. He would wound, he would cripple, he would take off limbs leaving people near vegetables and he would ruin lives but he wouldn't take them. Killing this man whom Naruto had often told me to forget was as if I was cursing Naruto and spitting in his face. I had defied him, done something he considered horrible to my own flesh and blood. I walk through the gates of Konoha tiredly. It is night and the moon shines over head. My head is covered by a hat my face by a scarf. I stumble through, ignored by the guards. If they only knew what I could do to them easily if I had the whim to, they'd be quaking in their boots and chuunin vests. The streets are quiet as they always were. The stars gleam, the breeze warms me, clouds move across the sky, the days have soared, a baby cries, the moon glows, the river flows, I almost expected the whole town to stop without you Naruto. My tears have dried even though my heart yearns for him. The world keeps on turning like it always has, but something inside me has died. I make my way down the streets, following my feet. I come to a house. I don't know why, but I want to knock on the door and ask to come in. My rouge feet move toward the house and my hand knocks on the door. Laughed emits from the house and the door opens showing a sliver of light. "Hello? How can I help you?" a confident yet kind voice asks. Sasuke looks up at her. She has pink hair and friendly green eyes. It's Sakura. Her stomach is swollen with pregnancy. How Naruto would like to see her now, so happy. "Naruto," I whisper too softly for her to hear. I cough and collect my thoughts. She gasps as I pull off my scarf and hat. "Sasuke!" she exclaims dropping the plate that was in her hand. She falls into me, her arms around my neck. "Come inside! Have some dinner. You must be starved. Geeze you worried us! How could you do that! Look! You made me drop my best china!" she mock scolds. She ushers me into her house as if I had only disappeared for a few days. I'm forced to sit down at a table in a warm kitchen. Sitting at the table are children. Children who look like a mix of Sakura and someone familiar. Someone with black hair and round eyes. Rock Lee. "Mommy? Who's he?" one of them, a little girl, asks. She points toward me with her fork before using the utensil to shovel dinosaur shaped chicken into her mouth. "That's Uncle Sasuke sweetie," Sakura tells her daughter as she cleans up the plate she had dropped. The pieces went into the garbage and Sakura washes her hands before going to stand behind her daughter. "Sasuke, this is my daughter Rini and this is my son Kane. Kids this is your uncle Sasuke, I've told you about him." "Yes Mommy," Kane says obediently. "He doesn't look like a really strong ninja to me. Daddy could beat him up," Rini comments rudely. "Rini!" Sakura scolds. "I'm so sorry Sasuke." She turns to her kids. "It's almost bedtime and you have school tomorrow. Finish up and get ready for bed. I'll be there in a bit to tuck you in." The kids nod and eat what is on their plates while Sakura gets me food and stands over me to make sure I eat it all. "Night mommy!" the children call as they leave the room. "I'm sorry Lee was feeling slightly ill tonight. I didn't want to wake him. How've you been?" Sakura asks. "We've missed you." "I killed him," I say and no more is needed. Sakura nods. "Where's Naruto? I thought he was with you. He came back and found you gone. I thought he went to catch up with you so that you wouldn't get ahead in your training," Sakura tells me. She gasps. "Is he ok? Is he dead? Tell me he's still alive." "I don't know. I've only caught sight of him once about seven or so years ago," I inform her. Sakura changes the topic deciding to leave well enough alone, knowing she won't get any information. "Well, Lee and I started going out about a month after Naruto left. We got married about two years later. Rini is now about seven and Kane is five. They're both at the ninja school. Rini is a little genius. She has my brains; Lee's determination, my chakra control and Lee taught her taijutsu. She's so promising. Kane isn't as promising, but he's sweet and kind to everyone. I'm now a jounin and I have my team, which I'll have to give up for a while soon cause of the baby. Lee is an instructor at the school since he can't be a real ninja but we do missions together sometimes. You know, C-class types. "Ino and Shikamaru married. You remember they were going out? They married a year after you left and have three kids, two girls and a boy. They're all geniuses. The oldest is Ayame who is nine. The youngest is their son Shinta and he's three. Hinata married Kiba about five years ago. They have the most adorable little boy. He's eighteen months and the cutest thing you've seen. Neji and Tenten are dating on and off. Neji doesn't want to commit. I think Tenten should leave him for a bit just to get him to realize what his life would be like without her," Sakura gossips. Sakura continues for what seems like hours before showing me the guestroom. That night as I sleep I realize something, this is my home; this is my only home. It's the only sacred ground I've ever known. Forever I will be grateful to it for all it has done for me.
Naruto: 10th year
I'm coming home. After all these years, I'm homeward bound. Home, where my escaping. Home, where my music's playing. Home where my love lies waiting silently for me. Yea right. I'm not going home for any reason like that. I've given up on my dream to become hokage because I'm going home to die.
I've stopped taking the pills that's why I'm dying. Maybe I can get one more good fight before I go or maybe I can die in peace. Either way seems good. I just don't want to be alone anymore.
I don't know what made me stop taking the pills, I just did. A complete subconscious decision thus proving I have a subconscious. Whoopie. It has been interesting to watch myself deteriorate. I don't think I've felt this weak in a very long time. I wonder what Sasuke would think if he saw me like this. Would he smirk and tell me I'm dead last again? Would I respond?
I think I lost my ability to speak. I haven't in about four years. Strange how people used to think I was loud. Once you stop speaking its as if it is impossible to. I don't even think my vocal chords work any more.
I'm a mile away from Konoha now; I can see it down the road. I wonder if it has changed too. Maybe it is kinder, but I can't see that from here. From a distance it is still the same. Maybe a bit taller, maybe a bit brighter with new paint, but all in all the same. Hokage mountain still stands tall only boasting a new face of it. Tsunade has been immortalized on it. The old hag. I miss her.
I run the last leg to the village and hide in the bushes. My mission: to get over the wall without being detected. Maybe I can go in the normal way, no, too normal for me. Need a challenge. I grab a camouflage cloth, one of the wall. I stick all my chakra into my back so I'll stick and whenever they aren't looking my way I inch up. I could get over quicker, but that would be less fun. I watch my chakra so it resembles that of a squirrel or something. They won't even look my way.
I'm over, success at last. I'm going to blend in, something that used to be hard for me but now I'm practiced at it. I can blend in with any crowd. Back when I got restless I worked as a pseudo assassin. There were rumors that I'd come out of nowhere and attack. I didn't actually kill anyone. Cripple them for life yea, but not kill. Ten years of isolation and hasn't changed that.
The village is still the same. Everything is the same. Without you the ground thaws, the rain falls, the grass grows, children play, the earth turns, the sun burns but I'm dying without you. Sasuke, it's all the same except for me, I'm dying without you.
The site of Tsunade's office distracts me from my thoughts. I wonder if I can sneak in without anyone noticing. I'm going to go in the normal way. I walk in the door as if I'm just waiting around for orders and disappear into the bathroom, changing into my old ANBU outfit. How I hate to put it back on! I join a group of ANBU's heading upstairs and tag along. How unobservant they are. Back in my day they would have all attacked me with kunai by now. Ack! They're turning another way! I leap out the nearest window and hang on. I climb slowly up the rest of the way, careful to stay in the tower's shadow. Slinging onto the windowsill and into her office is easy. Have I gotten better or is security here horrible?
"Hold it. You move like one of my ANBU but I know you're not. Tell me who you are," a female voice demands. I turn around to see Tsunade holding a kunai to my throat. She still looks the same as she always did. Now she looks younger than I do. All the effect of time has taken no toll on her youthful appearance. All hail the queen of youth. I sigh and take off my mask revealing a cloth covering my face much like Kakashi's. All she can see are my eyes. She looks quizzically at me, wondering who I am.
"Red eyes. Unusual. You sneak in here in an ANBU outfit and do so quietly. You have red eyes. But you're not..." she trails off.
"Sas...Sasuke," I sputter, my first word since I last screamed his name in anguish four years ago. I cleared my throat, the ability to talk returned. "You're losing your touch old hag." I take out the necklace she gave me all those years ago, still around my neck.
"Naruto?" she asks. I nod silently. She keeps the kunai up, but visibly relaxes. Then with a clang it drops to the floor and her arms are around my neck. "You brat! You scared us so much! You made me send Hunter- nins after you!" She pulls back and resumes her defensive pose, remembering that I deserted the village, that I'm a missing nin and a potential threat. "Why did you come back?"
"To die," I tell her softly. With a tug my facemask comes down along with my hood. I can almost feel my eye color changing back to be the blue ringed with red.
"From what?" she asks cautiously. She takes inventory of me, sees my thinness from not eating and my deterioration. "Naruto, I'm going to have to put you under arrest. You're a missing nin. I can't just pat you on the back and welcome you with open arms." I nod but feel my mood dropping. What could I expect? "I'll tell them you're sick and get you to the hospital."
"I don't need to..." I start and the world goes black. Memory seeps through my veins. I feel myself becoming weightless and empty, sinking into the oblivion of peace. I dream of him, holding me in his arms, in the arms of the angel. I can feel myself flying far, far away from all this. He holds me and comforts me. I'm in the arms of the angel; I find only comfort here.
Sasuke:
On the road again. What else am I do to? I am a like the rounin, no master, no where to go and no purpose. What am I to do?
I train now, any possible time when I don't travel where my feet take me. If I don't I start to think.
I wonder if he's dead, if he's sick or if he's suffering. I am walking home, for I have no where else to go. No where else to have a claim to, not even a weak one. I can remember neither any place I stopped in my journey nor any man I killed. I feel so empty but then I always have. He was the only one who made it all go away. I close my eyes and dream of him. He's radiating like the sun, chasing away all my fears and doubts. He's filling the emptiness with warmth and joy. He's older now in my mind's eye, mature. The years have been kinda to him; the disease hasn't taken hold of his youthful boy. He's still the boy of seventeen only with a wisdom about him even though now he's twenty-six like I am. Does he think of me as I do him? Does he regret walking out on me like a coward? Is he even still alive? Has he fallen to an enemy or to sickness? I don't think so, somehow I know that's not true, but I can't tell for sure. One foot in front of the other. I don't come in triumphantly. I come into my hometown beaten and broken, the last of the Uchiha ready to admit defeat at last. I trudge along the path. Just one more step, I tell myself over and over again. I can make it. In truth I come home triumphant. I accomplished my goal for setting our, or one of them at least. Itachi, my most hated brother, is dead. A battle fought, many times each ended in him laughing over me until the last time when I stood over him. It was a sharingun battle, both of us copying moves quickly from each other as soon as they were shown to us. We were matched, him having the slight advantage. Then I remember Naruto, his willpower and his need to succeed. In secret I always wanted to be like him. I always wanted to be able to prevail through all the trials like he did. I felt as if he was with me. He had killed Ochimaru for me so now I could kill Itachi with no hindrance. Walking away from the last battle, with my brother's body burning to ash behind me, broke me more than the battle itself. I had to rest for a month afterward, but the hopeless look on his face when I gave the final blow imprinted itself on my soul. Naruto never liked killing. I believe he only did it once in all the years I knew him and he mourned the man diligently for years afterward, the death leaving its mark. He would wound, he would cripple, he would take off limbs leaving people near vegetables and he would ruin lives but he wouldn't take them. Killing this man whom Naruto had often told me to forget was as if I was cursing Naruto and spitting in his face. I had defied him, done something he considered horrible to my own flesh and blood. I walk through the gates of Konoha tiredly. It is night and the moon shines over head. My head is covered by a hat my face by a scarf. I stumble through, ignored by the guards. If they only knew what I could do to them easily if I had the whim to, they'd be quaking in their boots and chuunin vests. The streets are quiet as they always were. The stars gleam, the breeze warms me, clouds move across the sky, the days have soared, a baby cries, the moon glows, the river flows, I almost expected the whole town to stop without you Naruto. My tears have dried even though my heart yearns for him. The world keeps on turning like it always has, but something inside me has died. I make my way down the streets, following my feet. I come to a house. I don't know why, but I want to knock on the door and ask to come in. My rouge feet move toward the house and my hand knocks on the door. Laughed emits from the house and the door opens showing a sliver of light. "Hello? How can I help you?" a confident yet kind voice asks. Sasuke looks up at her. She has pink hair and friendly green eyes. It's Sakura. Her stomach is swollen with pregnancy. How Naruto would like to see her now, so happy. "Naruto," I whisper too softly for her to hear. I cough and collect my thoughts. She gasps as I pull off my scarf and hat. "Sasuke!" she exclaims dropping the plate that was in her hand. She falls into me, her arms around my neck. "Come inside! Have some dinner. You must be starved. Geeze you worried us! How could you do that! Look! You made me drop my best china!" she mock scolds. She ushers me into her house as if I had only disappeared for a few days. I'm forced to sit down at a table in a warm kitchen. Sitting at the table are children. Children who look like a mix of Sakura and someone familiar. Someone with black hair and round eyes. Rock Lee. "Mommy? Who's he?" one of them, a little girl, asks. She points toward me with her fork before using the utensil to shovel dinosaur shaped chicken into her mouth. "That's Uncle Sasuke sweetie," Sakura tells her daughter as she cleans up the plate she had dropped. The pieces went into the garbage and Sakura washes her hands before going to stand behind her daughter. "Sasuke, this is my daughter Rini and this is my son Kane. Kids this is your uncle Sasuke, I've told you about him." "Yes Mommy," Kane says obediently. "He doesn't look like a really strong ninja to me. Daddy could beat him up," Rini comments rudely. "Rini!" Sakura scolds. "I'm so sorry Sasuke." She turns to her kids. "It's almost bedtime and you have school tomorrow. Finish up and get ready for bed. I'll be there in a bit to tuck you in." The kids nod and eat what is on their plates while Sakura gets me food and stands over me to make sure I eat it all. "Night mommy!" the children call as they leave the room. "I'm sorry Lee was feeling slightly ill tonight. I didn't want to wake him. How've you been?" Sakura asks. "We've missed you." "I killed him," I say and no more is needed. Sakura nods. "Where's Naruto? I thought he was with you. He came back and found you gone. I thought he went to catch up with you so that you wouldn't get ahead in your training," Sakura tells me. She gasps. "Is he ok? Is he dead? Tell me he's still alive." "I don't know. I've only caught sight of him once about seven or so years ago," I inform her. Sakura changes the topic deciding to leave well enough alone, knowing she won't get any information. "Well, Lee and I started going out about a month after Naruto left. We got married about two years later. Rini is now about seven and Kane is five. They're both at the ninja school. Rini is a little genius. She has my brains; Lee's determination, my chakra control and Lee taught her taijutsu. She's so promising. Kane isn't as promising, but he's sweet and kind to everyone. I'm now a jounin and I have my team, which I'll have to give up for a while soon cause of the baby. Lee is an instructor at the school since he can't be a real ninja but we do missions together sometimes. You know, C-class types. "Ino and Shikamaru married. You remember they were going out? They married a year after you left and have three kids, two girls and a boy. They're all geniuses. The oldest is Ayame who is nine. The youngest is their son Shinta and he's three. Hinata married Kiba about five years ago. They have the most adorable little boy. He's eighteen months and the cutest thing you've seen. Neji and Tenten are dating on and off. Neji doesn't want to commit. I think Tenten should leave him for a bit just to get him to realize what his life would be like without her," Sakura gossips. Sakura continues for what seems like hours before showing me the guestroom. That night as I sleep I realize something, this is my home; this is my only home. It's the only sacred ground I've ever known. Forever I will be grateful to it for all it has done for me.