Chapter Four

Hot breath. Fangs. The stench of blood. Fear. How long had he had to endure it now? It seemed like a lifetime, it seemed like twolifetimes. He was injured, blood dripped down his left arm, staining his shirt from the elbow down. Sweat glistened on any part of his skin that wasn't obscured by blood and dirt, stinging him as it soaked into his wounds.

The Kyubi growled low in its throat and the air vibrated with the sound. Naruto growled back. He had a plan, and now it was time to put it in action.

Determination in his eyes, he bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood and slammed it down on the ground.

"Summoning no jutsu!"

Naruto arrived at the clearing the next morning blurry eyed and still half asleep; though he was knocked out of that sleepiness a few seconds later when the first words that greeted him were: "you're late."

It wasn't Sasuke who said it.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at Naruto as the blond gaped at him, and then flapped a hand negligently in Sasuke's direction. "No matter, I hope you figured out a way to keep the Kyubi's Chakra level down, I don't want you two to stop training till about lunch time."

Naruto turned his bewildered gaze to Sasuke and received a shrug. Naruto could only guess that Kakashi must have been serious about getting them through the Chuunin exam this time.

"You can begin any time," Kakashi said, a not-so-subtle hint for them to hurry the hell up.

Naruto cast the man an irritated look and then moved to the centre of the clearing; guessing, correctly, that they'd do the same as yesterday.

Naruto did a better job of keeping a low level of power this time and by lunchtime, when Kakashi finally called a halt, Sasuke had managed to knock Naruto from his position twice. Though, that didn't stop the black-haired boy from dropping to his knees, trying to get his breath back, as soon as Kakashi told them to stop. Naruto stood awkwardly nearby letting the Kyubi's chakra dissipate.

"You did better this time," Kakashi said and stood, putting his book away. "Sasuke, I'm hoping this will improve your endurance a little, you have to remember to save enough energy for the end of the battle as well as expending what you need to for the beginning. Naruto, be here on time tomorrow."

Naruto glared as, again, their teacher disappeared in the puff of smoke before the words had even finished being said and turned to Sasuke who was still gasping on the ground.

"He must really want to get rid of us," Naruto grouched.

Sasuke nodded absently and pushed himself to his feet. "He was here…even before I was…this morning," he managed to say between gasps and pushed his forehead protected slightly higher on his forehead in an attempt to keep his sweat soaked hair off of his face.

"You look like hell," Naruto observed and ignored the glare Sasuke aimed at him.

A few minutes later, Sasuke had finally gotten his breathing under control and they turned to leave only to find Sakura entering the clearing.

"Hello!" she chirped and Naruto grinned, waving as she joined them. "I thought we could have lunch!" she said.

Naruto opened his mouth, fully intending to take her up on her offer immediately, but was cut off by Sasuke.

"Not today."

"Oh," Sakura said, deflating slightly.

Naruto aimed a glare at Sasuke. "Why not?" he demanded and Sasuke frowned at him.

"We still have things to do," he said and walked passed Naruto and Sakura, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Hurry up."

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. "You have things to do; I don't. I'll have lunch with you, Sakura-chan."

"Errr…no. That's alright." Sakura looked less than enthusiastic, "If you have things to do then I'll just go back to the academy. Bye, Sasuke-kun!" she waved a little at the boy as she passed him and walked quickly from the clearing.

Naruto stayed where he was for a moment, his expression blank, until Sasuke sighed and turned back to him, looking irritated.

"Baka. You knew she was going to do that."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

Sasuke's lips tightened, "so why did you bother?"

Naruto managed a half grin, "maybe, one day, I'll get lucky and she'll agree."

"You don't believe that," Sasuke said and Naruto dropped his grin and began to walk, passing Sasuke quickly.

"No," he agreed as Sasuke fell in beside him. It never seemed to stop him from trying though; he couldn't seem to stop, even though he knew that the only person Sakura saw was Sasuke. It was frustrating.

"So, stop," Sasuke said.

Naruto turned a glare on the black-haired boy. "Mind your own business!" he snapped and began to walk faster.

Sasuke caught up to him in a few steps.

"No. You should stop throwing yourself at her, it's irritating."

"Really? Gee, I apologise for irritating someone as high and mighty as yourself. If it's such a bother, don't look."

"Naruto!" Sasuke snapped the others name and grabbed his arm, yanking him to a stop.

Naruto slapped Sasuke's hand away and glared, "don't. It's none of your business, leave me alone."

"Idiot! I'm trying to help."

"What? So you can have her to yourself!" Naruto began to walk again.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Sasuke snapped. "I don't want her."

"No? Then how come you haven't stopped her fawning over you so much?" Naruto demanded and spun on his heel to glare at Sasuke fixedly.

Sasuke glared back, "because she can be just as dense as you can sometimes. She doesn't take 'no' for an answer. What would you have me do?"

Their argument had taken them out of the training areas and into the village itself and Naruto suddenly put his hand over his eyes and leaned back against a nearby wall.

"Sorry," he muttered. He'd been lashing out without reason; he knew that. Sasuke avoided Sakura as much as he could and Naruto knew it, hell; half the time he was helping Sasuke avoid her.

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a long while before he finally spoke, his voice low.

"Come on. Let me go home and have a shower, and then I'll make you some ramen."

Naruto felt his lips twitch slightly in amusement, when all else failed people always resorted to ramen. Wait…

"Make me some ramen?" he inquired.

Sasuke's eyebrow twitched, "I'm not buying you any, I don't have enough cash on me to feed you."

Naruto smirked, "fine. Whatever you want. Let's go!"

And, mood completely restored, he grabbed Sasuke by the arm and began dragging him down the street.

"Ramen~, Ramen~, Home-made Raaaamannn~."

Naruto lay on his back on the floor of Sasuke's kitchen, arms behind his head and his foot tapping against the side of the low table as he hummed to himself. He was waiting for Sasuke to get out of the shower and finish changing and he was getting incredibly bored.

And he wanted his ramen.

Flipping over onto his stomach, Naruto rested his chin on his arms and glared at the doorway, willing Sasuke to hurry up and walk through it.

No such luck.

He began to wiggle along the floor, moving until he could see down the hallway. Still no Sasuke.

Naruto eyed the bathroom door and tried to force it into opening with pure will alone. His eyebrow twitched slightly when it didn't work.

Was there any particular reason Sasuke was taking so long? Did he normally take this long? He tried to think back, but all his hungry thoughts provided for him was the never-ending mantra 'Ramen, ramen, ramen, ramen'.

Hmmm…. He wondered if the door was locked.

Then he wondered how badly Sasuke would bet him up if he barged into the bathroom and dragged the black-haired boy out of the shower to cook for him.

Naruto's lips twitched up into a smirk and his eyes got a glint to them that could only be read as mischievous. Slowly (he had to give Sasuke a chance after all) he began to crawl his way down the hallway and towards the bathroom door, his eyes never leaving it as he waited for any indication it was going to open. If it opened that was his cue to hightail it back to the kitchen and pretend he hadn't just been stalking his way down Sasuke's hallway on his hands and knees; however the door didn't open.

When he was finally sitting in front of the solid looking wooden door, he eyed it again carefully. It would suck a little if Sasuke were to walk out right then, but he supposed he could handle it for the sake of ramen. Maybe he should knock?

He continued eyeing the door for a moment, then slowly reached up and tested the handle. It was unlocked. He stifled an evil laugh; who needed to knock? Not Uzumaki Naruto!

Releasing the handle carefully so it wouldn't make any sound, Naruto tapped the door open and hit the floor in full stealth mode, ready to flee at a moments notice. After a brief pause in which no raging Sasuke descended on him, Naruto let his eyes roam the bathroom quickly and smirked. Pretty boy was still in the shower and it was one of those nifty ones with a glass screen, so Sasuke wouldn't even have noticed the cold breeze from the door opening.

Keeping his body full length across the floor so Sasuke wouldn't see his shadow moving, Naruto shimmied along, his going easier once he hit the tiles, and pushed the door half shut behind him.

He went still for a moment as the shadow on the other side of the glass moved and then, when it became apparent that the glass screen wasn't going to open, began to shimmy along the ground again until he had his back up against the wall beside glass door.

Hmmm…. What to do, what to do? He contemplated a few options before settling for the most basic of them all and implemented it.

Settling into a more natural way of sitting, he reached out with one finger and pushed the sliding door open.

"Oi, hurry up."

Sasuke's reaction was amusing, to say the least. With a look of complete shock, Sasuke spun around and glared out the door, his expression turning to confusion for a moment before he looked down and saw Naruto grinning up at him.

Naruto lifted a hand and imitated their Icha Icha Paradise loving Sensei, "yo!"

Sasuke flushed bright red and slammed the shower door shut.

Naruto blinked and then his grin grew even wider. Hell yeah! Mission complete! That was one Uchiha Sasuke who was never going to linger in the shower when he'd promised to make Naruto ramen again.

Naruto began to laugh and the glass door was flung back open. Sasuke glared down at him with cheeks that were now only slightly pink, though that could have been blamed on the hot water that was streaming down around him.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

Naruto swallowed his laughter and made his eyes wide, "raaaamen."

Sasuke's expression turned incredulous, "get the hell out of my bathroom."

"But I'm hungry."

"I'll make the damned ramen when I'm finished. Get out."

Naruto latched onto one of Sasuke's legs, "but I'm hungry now."

Sasuke had turned bright red again; "get the hell off me!"

Naruto resisted Sasuke's attempts to pry him off and frowned. "Sasuke, you're getting me wet," he complained.

Sasuke's answer was slightly strained, "you're leaning into the shower, what the hell do you expect. Now, let me go."

"Only if you get out," Naruto said.

"Yes, yes. Now let go!"

"Pft, fine," Naruto released Sasuke's leg and stood up, grabbing one of the towels that hung near the shower door. "I'm going to steal some of your clothes," he declared and, using the towel to start drying his hair, walked out of the bathroom, hearing something hard hit the door as he closed it behind him.

Sasuke's clothes were slightly too big for him, but Naruto got around that by rolling up the legs of the black pants he'd stolen and using the belt for his weapons pouch to keep them up. They looked a bit stupid, but once he'd grabbed a random top and pulled that on you couldn't really tell. Naruto frowned and pulled on the collar of the dark blue shirt a bit; how could Sasuke stand the collar being this high?

"If you don't like it, take the damned thing off, dobe."

Naruto looked over his shoulder at where Sasuke was standing in the doorway, wearing a towel around his waist and using a second to dry his hair off. The black-haired boys eyes were riveted to Naruto's back and his expression was unreadable.

Naruto's eyebrows meet as he frowned. "There a problem with me wearing this?" he asked and tried to look behind him at whatever Sasuke was staring at.

Sasuke snapped his glare away from Naruto and walked into the room, "it's fine. Stop twisting like that, you'll fall over."

"Chi'." Naruto swore and flopped down onto Sasuke's bed, "I don't know why you're acting so bent out of shape. You have no sense of humour."

"Obviously," Sasuke said and Naruto rolled his eyes, "since I didn't know being a pervert was a requirement to having one."

"Pervert?!" Naruto changed his position so he was sitting on his knees and leaned forward, "I wasn't the one blushing so hard the room could have been set on fire, you know!"

Sasuke threw the towel he'd been drying his hair with at Naruto and began to pull clothes out of his draws. "No, you were the one peeping."

Naruto dodged the towel and glared, "I was not."

"Last time I checked sneaking around and watching people while they bathed was called peeping." Sasuke pulled a black t-shirt on over his head and turned to glare at Naruto, "you've been spending to much time around that perverted Jiraiya, now get the hell out of my room."

Naruto stood up and glared. "It would only be peeping if you were a girl," he declared, walked to the doorway, but paused to leer over his shoulder, "and you're definitely not a girl."

For the third time in ten minutes, Sasuke blushed beet red and Naruto slammed the door behind him as he ran out of the room, laughing.

"Are you sure you're not going to poison me?" Naruto had asked the question four times already as it had occurred to him, after Sasuke finally walked into the kitchen, fully dressed, that the black-haired boy could put anything in the ramen and Naruto wouldn't know until he was suffering through Sasuke's revenge.

"I said I'm not going to!" Sasuke snapped and turned from what he was doing to glare at Naruto, "I'm going to be eating it as well, you know. Do you think I'd poison myself?"

"Maybe?" Naruto hazarded to answer. Who knew what lengths Sasuke would go to, to exact revenge?

"Baka!" Sasuke spat the word and went back to his task. Naruto thumped his head down on the table and resigned himself to still more waiting.

"Why don't you go away and do something?" Sasuke finally said in irritation. "Go study some scrolls in the living room, or something."

"Don't feel like it," Naruto said to the tabletop.

"You're annoying me," Sasuke said.

"Good," he didn't even have to look up to know that Sasuke was probably trying to suppress an eyebrow twitch.

Naruto sighed a little and, lifting his head slightly, crossed his arms on the table to rest his chin on. He stared at Sasuke, "oi, Sasuke?"

"What?" Sasuke snapped, not turning around.

"Are you sure there's no problem with me wearing this shirt? You looked a bit green when you saw me wearing it."

Sasuke paused in the process of putting ramen noodles into a pot of boiling water and then continued.

"I said it was fine."

Naruto turned his gaze away from Sasuke's back and began to poke his still wet forehead protector that he'd put in front of him on the table, "really?"

"Yes."

Hmmm… Typical, monosyllabic, Sasuke. Now how to phrase the next question? Oh, who cared, he was already in enough trouble as it was.

"So why…err… well, how come…"

"Shut up," Sasuke said. Naruto noted he'd stopped whatever he'd been doing again and was staring out the window.

"I was just wondering," Naruto grouched and went back to staring at his headband.

Sasuke remained silent.

It was a very uncomfortable, brooding silence that Naruto sat through as he waited for Sasuke to finish making their lunch. He refused to leave the room though, he had a feeling that leaving Sasuke alone to think right then was a bad idea; he didn't have a clue as to why though.

Sasuke had made beef ramen, and vegetables. Naruto frowned at the amount of vegetables but resigned himself to eating them; food was food, after all. It was quite good.

It took till he was about halfway through his meal before he noticed that Sasuke was still in his brooding silence, barely touching his lunch as he stared into space. Naruto slowed the speed of his eating down and stared at Sasuke across the table. Sasuke didn't even notice.

Naruto was completely confused. It's just a shirt. He'd seen Sasuke wearing a zillion shirts exactly like it over the years and there had been a whole bunch just like it in the draw Naruto had grabbed it from. What was so special about it? Maybe it had something bizarre written on the back.

Naruto was startled out of his thoughts and he half choked on a ramen noodle as Sasuke suddenly spoke.

"You're the first one," he said.

Naruto stared at him as if he'd grown an extra head, "first one what?"

Sasuke's eyes finally left middle space and landed on him, making Naruto shiver slightly at the intensity there.

"You're the first person, other than me, who has worn that symbol since…. Since Itachi…," he paused and his mouth formed a thin line, "since then."

Naruto paused in the process of bringing another mouthful of ramen to his mouth and let it hang open.

"What?"

"Most of my shirts have the Uchiha Clan symbol on the back. You're wearing one of those."

Oh…oops.

Naruto put his chopsticks down. "I'll go take it off," he said and began to get up.

"No!"

Naruto froze, halfway through standing and looked at Sasuke, wide-eyed.

"I mean, no," Sasuke said a bit more calmly. "I said it's fine. It's fine. Finish your ramen," Sasuke looked down at his own bowl and began to follow his own advice.

Naruto stayed like he was for a moment before settling back down and picking his chopsticks up, watching Sasuke over his bowl. He really wanted to ask Sasuke again if he was sure he didn't want Naruto to go get changed, but Naruto occasionally knew when not to push a subject. If Sasuke insisted it was fine, then he'd stab Naruto to death with his chopsticks before admitting that it wasn't. In fact he might just stab Naruto to death with the chopsticks just for asking again.

Naruto focused on finishing his ramen.

Naruto was doing guard duty. Boring, with a capital Boring; sometimes it really sucked that the old-hag-Hokage gave him assignments that fitted his skill level instead of his rank, being still only a Genin he should have been able to avoid this.

Naruto leaned back on the wall behind him and stared off into the forest. At least this assignment wasn't for long. He'd already been standing at this entrance to Konoha for four hours and he only had another two hours before he was relieved… Oh, who was he kidding? He'd been standing here at this tiny, little, hardly used doorway for four hours, freezing himself half to death since it had rained on him only an hour ago; it was getting dark out, he'd forgotten to wear the gloves that went with the uniform he was forced to wear while on guard duty and he still had to dither around here for another two hours.

Life sucked.

Shoving his hands under his armpits so they wouldn't freeze off, Naruto closed his eyes and focused on staying warm (or as warm as he could be while standing against a cold, wet brick wall in soaking wet, lukewarm clothes and with his left foot in a puddle of water that he couldn't avoid having his foot in no matter where he stood because he wasn't allowed to move from in front of the gate).

He shivered and tightened his arms around his chest, burrowing his hands further under his arms. Damn this weather, and damn guard duty. Damn that old-hag-Hokage too, while he was at it. This was all her fault. He could have been at home right now, snuggled up in bed, warm and with a cup of ramen, enjoying the fact that he wasn't outside; instead he was out here. Out here doing Chuunin duties. Sure, he knew that the old hag was assigning he and Sasuke Chuunin duties because she didn't believe that something as petty as rank should hold them back, and more importantly it meant that she believed he could handle the duties; but it still didn't stop him from being wet, miserable, outside and hungry. Really hungry.

If only he could become Hokage without doing the annoying bits in between.

The two hours before his replacement came seemed to crawl and it rained on him twice more before he managed to get away. When he finally got to go home he had to almost literally drag his water logged body and when he finally got there it took five minutes of his nearly blue fingers fiddling with his key before he could convince it to go in the lock and open the door.

Walking inside with a wet, squelch-y sound, Naruto kicked the door shut, listened for the lock to click and then began to move towards his bathroom, fighting with his wet clothes and frozen fingers as he walked. He didn't have much in the way of success and by the time he managed to get his vest and weapons off and hurl them into the wash basket inside the bathroom door, he was ready to cry with exhaustion. Fighting with his top, pants and shoes went easier and he hurled them all into the wash basket before wrapping his arms around his naked body and shivering his way to his room. He knew he could do with something warm in him, and he also knew he could use a hot shower to thaw out; but he was so damned tired all he wanted to do was curl up in bed and die for a few hours. His room was chilly when he reached it and Naruto settled for grabbing the nearest clothes to him instead of rummaging in his dresser for his pyjamas.

It didn't occur to him till he suddenly found himself enveloped in the smell of Sasuke that he had pulled on the clothes he had borrowed from the other boy and by that time he was to tired to care; besides, they were warm and the smell was oddly comforting.

Giving the high collar of the shirt a half-hearted tug, Naruto climbed into his bed and pulled the blankets up around his ears and then curled himself up into a tight ball to try and generate some heat. After a while his shivering stopped, his hands finally stopped feeling like they were blocks of ice attached to his arms and he managed to relax a little, letting his tired body fall into a much needed rest.

"It's cold." Naruto breathed on his hands to try and warm them and ended up watching forlornly as his breath vaporized and floated off before it could lend even a little warmth to his frozen fingers. "I take that back; it's god damned freezing."

"Learn to persevere, brat." Naruto looked over at where Jiraiya was bouncing from foot-to-foot, attempting to get some warmth into his blood.

"You're cold too." Naruto pointed out and Jiraiya gave him a look.

"Yes." He said calmly and rubbed his hands together, "But I'm persevering."

Naruto snorted and kicked at a pile of snow. They were in hidden snow country, of all places, because Jiraiya had decided it was time to work on Naruto's stealth techniques. Why they couldn't do that back in Konoha, he didn't know. It was warm in Konoha; none of this breath freezing in your lungs before you even got to breath it business.

The pile of snow Naruto had kicked at grabbed his foot and pulled, knocking him off balance and sending him flying onto his backside.

"Itai!" What the hell? Since when did piles of snow attack you?

"You took your sweet time." He heard Jiraiya complain and managed to get himself into enough of a sitting position to see the pile of snow suddenly turn into a man dressed completely in white, a smile on his face as if we weren'tfreezing his arse off even though he hadjust been immersed in snow.

"Jiraiya." The man greeted and clasped the white-haired man's hand. "My, your hand is freezing!" He said and gestured over his shoulder.

Instantly another five 'snow drifts' stood up. Naruto gawked.

"Close your mouth, boy." Jiraiya said with a smirk, "First we go thaw out, and then you'll begin to work on your stealth techniques."

Naruto scrambled to his feet and grinned; now this would be training!