Chapter One

Naruto tiredly pushed the door to his apartment open, staggered in the door and then kicked it shut behind him, pausing only to listen for the click of the lock to make sure the door was shut properly before he dragged himself in the direction of his bedroom.

As he moved he dumped first his pack, then his jacket, and then yanked off his shoes and threw them somewhere behind him. His weapon pouch, leg holster, and then his pants followed in the messy trail behind him and, by the time he reached his bed, he was dressed in nothing but his boxers. With an exhausted sigh he let himself fall into bed like a dead weight. He used some of his last strength to pull his blankets up around himself and then shut his eyes to fall into an exhausted sleep.

Or at least he tried to.

After a few minutes of his tired body attempting to explain to his equally tired brain that it was time to shut down for a while, Naruto's eyes opened again to stare up at his ceiling. Dying sunlight filtered in around the blinds that covered his bedroom windows telling him that it would be dark soon and somewhere beyond the windows he could hear the half muted sounds of end-of-the-day birdsong. He wasn't paying attention though; his mind was still back at the clearing two days east of Konoha where he'd made the biggest mistake of his short life; or rather the two biggest mistakes of his young life. First he'd messed up the one thing that really meant anything to Sasuke: his mission as an Avenger, and then he'd messed up the one thing that had really meant anything to himself: his friendship with Sasuke.

He'd been such an idiot! He was used to people calling him that and he would be the first to admit that he wasn't the sharpest kunai in the pouch, but for once in his life he really, honestly, completely believed everyone who'd ever said it. He was an idiot, a complete moron. He'd lost the one actual friend he'd managed to earn for himself and he only had himself to blame.

Groaning with a mixture of despair, self-loathing and exhaustion, Naruto rolled over onto his stomach and tried to half-heartedly smother himself with his pillow. What would Sasuke do now? Would he tell anyone? Oh Gods, what if he did? All he had to do was mention it to one person and it would be all over the Village within hours. The older adults already knew, of course, and Naruto was somewhat used to their cold, hate-filled, glares…. But if Sasuke told anyone then it wouldn't just be the adults staring, glaring and whispering behind his back any more; it would be everyone. Everyone. All the people he'd managed to make accept him; all the people that had learned to like him, and even respect him, because they didn't know…would know.

And he'd already lost Sasuke. He had struggled since he was twelve to get Sasuke to accept him and when finally, finally it looked like the dark-haired boy had given up on his 'holier then thou' mentality and admitted that Naruto might not be so bad after all….

Naruto grabbed his pillow, yanked it out from under his head and slammed it down again over his head, resting his hands on it to keep it in place. He didn't want to lose Sasuke. He'd never admit it to the boy himself, or to anyone else for that matter, but of all the friendships he'd made, that one was his most precious. He'd worked hard for it, damn it!

…But what could he do? He'd messed it up himself; messed it up with no hope of retrieval. He was hopeless. No, he was worse than hopeless. What was the point of working so hard to make friends if he couldn't keep them? What was the point of getting people to accept him if he was just going to give them reasons not to? He was such an idiot. Such an idiot.

Somewhere amongst his circular thoughts, Naruto's body finally won its argument with his brain and the two of them shut down on him, dropping him into blessed oblivion.

He could smell it all around him, mixed with the smell of blood. Old blood, new blood. New fire, old ashes. It floated on the wind coating everything within a few miles radius in its stink and a greasy grey residue.

Flicking stray ashes out of his hair he stared sadly into the distance and at the demon born beast that was killing his people faster almost than he could blink. The Nine-tails. Even as he watched three of the fire wreathed tails lashed out, destroying buildings, forest and people, leaving nothing standing in their wake.

It made him sick but he couldn't turn away. It had to be stopped, and stopped soon; he wouldn't allow this to continue.

At his side his long time mentor and friend stood and watched with him, his face grim.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," he answered, not even a hint of hesitation in his voice.

"Unghhhh…." Naruto woke up slowly and groaned as a beam of early morning sunlight that had somehow managed to sneak in around the sides of one of his blinds smacked him in the face, and more importantly, in the eyes. Taking a firm grip on the edge of his blankets, Naruto pulled them up over his head and rolled over…and ended up on the floor, blinking with sudden wakefulness.

Chi'. He hadn't even noticed he was that close to the edge of the bed. Giving in to the inevitable, Naruto pulled himself to his feet and yawned; then stretched slowly to remove the kinks from sleeping.

If it was any consolation, he thought, it looked like it was going to be a nice day outside. Naruto walked around the bed and peered out from behind one of the blinds; yeah, a really nice day. Training would probably be really fu….

Naruto suddenly chopped the thought off before he could finish it; he'd forgotten. Every morning he trained with Sasuke, but Sasuke wouldn't want to train with him now. Naruto let the blind slip back over the window and he turned, expression blank, and began to pull on a fresh set of clothes.

No, Sasuke wouldn't want to train with him now; he wouldn't even want to see Naruto. That wasn't Sasuke's fault, though; no one would want to be around the Nine-tails. it was natural that Sasuke wouldn't want to see him, even in passing, certainly not while training.

Naruto finished dressing and wandered out of the room in search of breakfast.

No, he wasn't going to blame Sasuke for not wanting to see him. Actually, he felt sorry for the other boy now that he thought about it. How must Sasuke be feeling right now? How must he have been feeling on the achingly silent and infinitely long journey back to Konoha after he'd found out? Now he was dealing with the knowledge that since he was twelve he'd been unknowingly spending his time with the Kyubi. It must have been sickening.

Entering his kitchen, Naruto pulled the carton of milk out of his fridge and dismally sat down at the kitchen table.

He supposed he should just count himself lucky that they'd been on a mission when Sasuke had found out. Sasuke had become pretty strict about getting missions completed so it was probably only Sasuke's sense of duty that had prevented him from kicking the living hell out of Naruto and leaving him for dead. Yeah…. Naruto absently gulped back a hit of milk from the carton and put back down on the table, hard enough for some of the contents to slosh out over his fingers. He stared at the spilled liquid listlessly. Obviously he'd had a stroke of good luck when it came to Sasuke being so determined to complete their mission. It really must have taken a lot of Sasuke's self restraint not to do something to Naruto, after all he wasn't just the Kyubi, he'd messed up Sasuke's chance to kill Itachi, too.

Naruto stared blankly at the carton of milk for a while then thunked his head down on the tabletop. What was he going to do? He was so used to having Sasuke around! Missions, training, assignments; he did them all with Sasuke. He'd enjoyed it, all that time with Sasuke. But what was he supposed to do now? The realisation was like a punch to the stomach; he wasn't just losing his best friend, he was losing his entire way of life!

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

Naruto banged his head on the tabletop, the sound seeming to echo in the emptiness of his apartment. What was he going to do? What?!

He suddenly sat up straight; he could tell Sasuke he'd been lying! Wait, he couldn't; Sasuke had seen the seal.

Damn it!

Naruto let his head clunk back down on the table; he was such a pathetic moron.

Naruto suddenly peeled a single eyelid open and his eye moved to stare at his front door. Someone was knocking on it.

He bolted upright in his chair. Argh! Sasuke told someone, the news has spread and the mob has arrived to kill me!

"Oi, Naruto!"

Naruto's eyes widened. Sasuke? Sasuke was at his front door? Why? What for? Was he here to get revenge on Naruto by beating him senseless and dumping his body where no one would ever find it? His first instinct had him leaping to his feet. Run away!

"Oi, Naruto!" Sasuke banged on the door again. "Get out of bed and open the damned door!"

He couldn't run away, Sasuke was good at tracking, Naruto would be caught before he'd even managed to get out the window. Naruto stared at the door, eyes wide and breathing panicked, and then swallowed. Well, if he was going to be killed by rabid Kyubi hunters it may as well be Sasuke.

Creeping forward, Naruto flicked the lock and pulled the door open a little, peering out.

"S-Sasuke?"

Sasuke glared at him, "about time. You're late for training, hurry up."

Naruto's mouth dropped open, "huh?"

Sasuke huffed a sigh of exasperation and turned to face Naruto fully, "training, Naruto. We've done it every morning for the last five years so you can't have forgotten what it is. Now hurry up and get the hell out here."

Naruto stared at Sasuke like he'd gone insane.

Sasuke glared back.

"Err… What about your ribs?" Naruto said intelligently.

Sasuke's eyebrow twitched slightly, "A healer-nin looked at them last night. Slightly cracked, but that's all. I'm bandaged and I'll have to be careful not to put any pressure on them."

"…Oh."

Sasuke stared at Naruto meaningfully, "so are you coming or not?"

"B-but…"

"What?"

"You…still want to train with me?" Naruto asked, confused.

Sasuke lifted an eyebrow, "why wouldn't I?"

"Because…because of the other day. Itachi…. A-and…."

Sasuke's gaze went blank and the temperature seemed to suddenly plummet to a level of icy frigidness. That had obviously been the wrong thing to say. He shouldn't have mentioned it, he shouldn't have. Now Sasuke was going to kick his arse, he should have just kept quiet and gone along with Sasuke's act of having forgotten.

Naruto half squeezed his eyes shut and tensed his muscles, expecting to have to fight or flee any time in the next few seconds…and then the room went back to normal temperature and Sasuke sighed.

"It…wasn't your fault," he said, his glare so fierce it was a wonder he didn't burn a hole in the wall he was glaring at. "But that doesn't mean I'm not mad at you," he added and transferred his glare back to Naruto, making the blond shiver at its intensity. "Jut don't bring it up any more. If you do…I won't be responsible…."

Naruto nodded quickly, in understanding. Sasuke had always become slightly unbalanced whenever his brother was involved; at least now he was making an effort to control it.

They went silent for a while, Sasuke's gaze having moved back to the wall and Naruto staring at the floor. Naruto was trying not to ask. Trying not to…though he knew he had to. Stealing himself, he looked up quickly at Sasuke then let his gaze settle somewhere around the other boys' knees.

"Uhm…." Naruto paused then forced himself to continue. "W-what…about the Kyubi?"

And instantly the mood between them changed. The last of the icy brooding feeling Sasuke had been projecting melted as he moved his glare from the wall to Naruto's face, completely surprised.

"The Kyubi? Baka, I don't care about that," his expression turned to an irritated scowl. "Now let's hurry up and go."

And he turned and walked off.

Don't…care…? He didn't care about 'that'? What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

"Oi!" Naruto yelled and, diving back into his apartment quickly to grab his weapons, he sped out the door and after Sasuke. "Damn it, Sasuke! Wait up!"

"Try moving faster, Baka," Sasuke called back and Naruto frowned, putting in a slight burst of speed as he tied his weapons pouch around his waist.

"What do you mean you 'don't care'?!" Naruto demanded as soon as he caught up to Sasuke and began to wind the bandages for his leg holster round his right thigh, hopping on one foot as he tried to keep up with Sasuke at the same time.

Sasuke stopped walking to let the other get his equipment on, "just what I said. I don't care."

"You seemed to care when I told you," Naruto snapped.

Sasuke blinked and then glared at Naruto fixedly. "Because of Itachi," he growled.

"What?"

"Because that's why Itachi wants you," Sasuke said, "I wanted to know why, it was just a shock to find out."

Naruto finished tying the bandage securely and hooked his leg holster onto his belt. "And so other than that, you don't care?" he asked incredulously.

"No," Sasuke said and watched Naruto tie the holster on backwards, figure out it was backwards, untie it, and then tie it on backwards again. "I don't see why I should."

Naruto looked up from the stupid holster and glared at Sasuke. "But I'm the Kyubi," he stressed the word as much as possible.

Sasuke frowned in annoyance, "you're Naruto."

Naruto frowned back. "You don't believe me," he accused, completely forgetting that he'd been wishing he could convince Sasuke of that just a few minutes before hand.

"I believe you," Sasuke responded. "But you're no different today than you were a week ago."

"But…"

Sasuke sighed in exasperation. "Do you want me to hate you?" he demanded.

"No!" Naruto dropped his leg holster in favour of grabbing Sasuke by the front of the shirt and shaking him slightly. "No! Definitely not!" he suddenly realised what he was doing and released Sasuke's shirt and picked up the holster, going back into battle with it and his belt. "I just…don't understand why you don't," he said quietly. "Everyone hates the Nine-tails."

Finally getting annoyed with Naruto's struggles with the leg holster, Sasuke batted Naruto's hands out of the way and quickly fixed it onto the belt himself.

"My brother, Itachi, murdered my family and my entire clan," he stated in a low voice, tying the holster tightly with achingly precise and controlled motions, "do you hate me for that?"

Naruto stared at him in shock, "no! Of course not! That'd be stupid, hating you for what that bastard did!"

Sasuke stepped away from Naruto, shoved his balled-up hands in his pockets and looked at the other boy intently. "Then why should I hate you for what the Kyubi did?" he asked, then turned away and continued walking. "Hurry up, all this pointless talking is wasting training time."

Naruto stood still and watched Sasuke as he walked away. Sasuke…didn't hate him for being the Kyubi? He really didn't hate him?

Bending down, Naruto affixed the final strap of the leg holster around his thigh and quickly rubbed at his face, determined that he would not start crying. Not in front of Sasuke, at least. Maybe later...but not now.

"Naruto! Hurry up!" Sasuke yelled, and Naruto grinned.

"I'll go as fast as I feel like, bastard!" he yelled back and jogged to catch up.

Kick, punch, kick, dodge to the left, jump, kick, spin, get kicked in the chest and thrown halfway across the clearing. Okay, that last bit hadn't been part of the plan, but hey! Naruto could adapt.

"Naruto!" Sasuke growled as he walked over to where Naruto was picking himself up off the ground and shaking his head to clear his vision. "I'm injured, not dying. If you don't attack me properly then I'm going to beat you."

"Chi'." Naruto moved his headband back onto his forehead from where it had slipped down to obscure half his eyesight, and glared up at his training partner. "Easy for you to say. You don't have to make sure you don't hit me in the wrong place."

"Get up," Sasuke smirked and walked a few steps back from Naruto.

"Gee, hold your horses, bastard," Naruto grumbled as he pulled himself to his feet and then threw himself at Sasuke in an abrupt attack.

Not as strong of an attack as he would normally have used, though. Naruto had already resigned himself to another loss today; regardless of what Sasuke said, Naruto just couldn't bring himself to use an all-out attack against the black-haired boy when he knew the other's ribs were injured. Ribs were tricky injuries, just a little to much force in the wrong place and bruised ribs became cracked ones, and cracked ribs became broken; and broken ribs were not good.

So, giving in to his inevitable loss for the day, Naruto slowed down the pace of the fight and began to talk.

"…well, I gather you got home all right after we reported the mission," Naruto began babbling on the first subject in his head since the subject wouldn't really matter; Sasuke never had listened to his babble. "Sorry I disappeared so fast, I know I should have helped you to the hospital but I was so dead tired I just wanted to sleep. I barely made it to bed, almost had to sleep on the floor, not that that's bad or anything, it's a pretty good floor, but it would have been cold and I probably would have woken up with one hell of a crick in my neck."

Naruto paused his monologue to dodge an attack and glared over at Sasuke. The black-haired boy was breathing harder than he should have been and Naruto's practised eye noticed the little signs that said that his ribs were paining him. Time to stop for lunch soon, then.

"Besides," he continued talking where he'd left off, "I had the most bizarre dream last night. I'd hate to think what sleeping on the floor would have inspired."

At the mention of dreams, Sasuke's eyebrow twitched slightly and he hit Naruto a little harder than necessary. Oops, wrong subject again. Naruto mentally cursed himself, he really should learn to think before he opened his mouth; of course dreams would be a taboo subject around Sasuke, especially after he'd had an encounter with his brother.

Naruto bit his tongue in a brief moment of thought as he ducked a kick aimed at his head, and then rolled out of the way. Sasuke hadn't actually said to not talk about dreams, so really Naruto couldn't be blamed for bringing them up; and he wouldn't bring up Sasuke's dreams, just his own. Maybe if the other boy knew he wasn't the only one who couldn't get a decent night sleep, it would help him a little.

So he ploughed in, boots and all.

"Of course, it's not like I don't always have…weird dreams. Normally it's just about the villagers though," and oh, how it hurt to wake in the morning, his pillow slightly soggy from tears, to find that reality was just as cruel as his dreams could be. "Last night was bizarre because I dreamed about the Nine-Tails," Naruto stopped moving as Sasuke did the same.

The black-haired boy was looking at him with an odd expression. Well, Naruto guessed that proved that for once the other had been listening to him.

"You had a dream…about the Kyubi?" Sasuke asked, looking curious despite himself.

"Yeah," Naruto put a hand behind his head and looked at the sky in thought. When he remembered the dream it almost seemed like he was back in it again with the taste of blood and ashes on his lips. "It was destroying the village," he explained softly, "there was fire, and blood, everywhere. And I could feel it, the Kyubi's fierce joy of killing; killing anything and everything that came in its path. It enjoyed the screams, it enjoyed the destruction it was causing…"

Naruto trailed off and then shook his head slightly, ripping his gaze away from the sky to look at Sasuke. The boy was staring at him and Naruto laughed nervously, catching on the first thing that came into his mind to try and dispel the disquieting feelings from himself, as well as to get rid of the expression on Sasuke's face.

"Bit of a stupid dream really. I bet it didn't mean anything," he said cheerfully. "Seriously, though, you'd think I'd dream about something relevant, right? I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd had a dream of random Chidori flying at me, or something."

That knocked the odd expression off Sasuke's face, alright. It also dropped the atmosphere to below subzero temperatures and made Naruto wonder if he just liked having Sasuke mad at him.

"Err… Not that…that would…," Naruto began, wishing he could erase what he'd just said.

"Shut up, Naruto," Sasuke's expression was hard again, but his eyes were turned inwards, remembering again.

Well, fuck.

"Sasuke-kun! Naruto!"

The call pulled both boys out of their thoughts and they looked up as Sakura bounced into the clearing, a smile on her face so wide it was impossible for Naruto not to smile back.

"Sakura-chan!"

"Iruka-Sensei told me the two of you were back," she began as she came to a stop; completely oblivious to the tension Sasuke was still projecting, "so I figured we could have lunch today!"

"Yes! Let's have…"

"No ramen!" Sakura interrupted quickly and glared at Naruto briefly before turning back to Sasuke, "Sasuke-kun, what do you want?"

Sasuke had turned his gaze back to Naruto, or at least in Naruto's general direction since his eyes were still only half focused.

"I don't care," he said and Sakura deflated slightly.

"Oh, well how about sandwiches, or something?" she asked.

Naruto made a face, "why not ramen?"

"We always have ramen," Sakura snapped. "Today we'll have sandwiches. Come on."

Naruto sighed theatrically and followed along behind the pink haired girl as she marched them out of the clearing, pausing only to make sure Sasuke was following and wasn't still spacing-out.

He was still spacing-out slightly, but he was also following so Naruto didn't bother calling attention to it. It was his fault Sasuke was spacing anyway, what had he told himself a few minutes ago? Learn to think before he spoke? Obviously he hadn't been listening.

It didn't take them long to get to whichever shop Sakura had decided on and soon the three of them were sitting quietly at an outside table with their lunch. No one was eating though; the tension oozing from Sasuke while he dwelt on his own thoughts had finally punctured Sakura's awareness and she was alternately glaring at Naruto and staring at Sasuke with concern.

Naruto sighed and took a bite of his sandwich; why did she always decide it was his fault?

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said after a while and smiled slightly when he transferred his gaze from his food to her. "What's wrong? You seem a bit…" she paused, searching for a word and Naruto inserted a few.

"Gloomy, depressing, boring, uptight, self-absorbed, itai!" Sakura had kicked him under the table.

"Preoccupied," Sakura said over Naruto's exclamation of pain and ignored the blond completely as he clutched at his shin, bemoaning the fates.

Sasuke's eyes flicked to Naruto and his reflective expression cleared slightly. A small, quickly squashed, smile tugged at his lips before he looked back at Sakura.

"I'm fine," he said and finally picked up one of his sandwiches. "Oi, dobe. Shut the hell up, you're making a scene."

Naruto pulled his leg up onto his seat with him and clutched his shin to his chest protectively, "why don't you shut up, bastard!"

"Because I'm not attracting attention," he said between bites on his food, "you are."

"Well it's your fault!" Naruto returned and Sasuke lifted an eyebrow at him.

"I didn't kick you."

"You're the reason I got kicked!"

"Oh, Naruto," Sakura intervened, a splash of pink across her cheeks the only indication that Naruto's increasingly loud exclamations were embarrassing her half to death. "Just shut up!" she followed the order with a sound smack to his head and Naruto freed one hand from his shin to clutch at his new injury.

"But Sakura-chaaaaan…"

"Just eat your lunch and shut up, dobe," Sasuke interrupted him and Naruto glared, but followed the orders. But he did it because he wanted to, and not because Sasuke said so; he was hungry.

Sakura had left twenty minutes later to go back to her classes at the academy and that had left Naruto at a loss for what to do next. He and Sasuke were always teamed for missions so until Sasuke's ribs were healed they wouldn't have any. Likewise, the morning's training was probably enough, maybe even to much, movement for aforementioned ribs and so they couldn't train for the afternoon. What on earth was there left to do?

He groaned the same question out loud and Sasuke glared at him. Not a real glare, Naruto noted, just the general, all-purpose glare that he directed at people by default.

"I'm going home," he stated and stood up.

Naruto jumped to his feet to follow, "what're you going to do?"

"Train," Sasuke said shortly and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Naruto frowned, "you shouldn't put any more strain on your ribs, ass-hole. I want to get back to doing missions sometime this century."

"Baka," Sasuke directed a mocking glare at Naruto this time. "There's more to training than fighting."

"I know that!" Naruto glared fiercely and Sasuke smirked back.

"Sure," he replied easily.

"Bastard!" Naruto jumped in front of Sasuke and glared at him, "don't mock me! Now what are you going to do?"

"Chi'." Sasuke stepped around Naruto and looked back over his shoulder, "I've got some scrolls I've wanted to study but haven't had the time, may as well do it now while I've got nothing else to do."

"Oh," Naruto paused in thought and then ran a few steps to catch up, "can I come?"

Sasuke's expression turned into a frown instantly, "you'll get in the way."

"I will not! You can do all your studying in a different room for all I care; I just want to see what kind of scrolls you have. I bet you have some cool ones, right?" he turned, overwhelmingly enthusiastic without noticing and Sasuke stared at the bouncing boy beside him aghast. "The only scrolls I get to look at are what I can get Iruka-Sensei to give me, and anything I'm assigned, but you have your entire families collection, right!?"

Sasuke looked away slightly, "yeah."

"So can I come look? Please? I'll be quiet, promise."

Sasuke frowned and looked back at Naruto, "you'll be quiet?"

Naruto glared, "I can be quiet!"

Sasuke snorted, but shrugged and turned to walk away as he spoke, "Hn. Fine."

"Yatta!" Naruto bounced around and almost missed the rest of Sasuke's sentence.

"But no experimenting! I'll be damned if you blow my house up because you can't get a simple jutsu right."

"Okay!" It was a small price to pay; Naruto even let the insult slide. It wasn't everyday someone like Naruto got to have a look at a collection of scrolls like the Uchiha clan would have.

Ignoring Sasuke's slightly annoyed look, Naruto trailed along behind the other boy, mimicking out to himself the kinds of cool new jutsu he was going to learn; he hoped Sasuke wouldn't be to stingy with them, maybe he'd be able to borrow a few.

Sighing, Sasuke hid an amused smile and resigned himself to a noisy afternoon.