Author's Opening Rant-As always, I'll start with a great big THANK YOU to all my reviewers! This story would have stopped a long time ago without you guys. I LOVE YOU ALL! n.n
Now this is going to basically be the Naruto and Sasuke chapter—no, not yaoi. The fight between Shino and Sasuke took a whole chapter, and so will this. Besides, the boys are basically the two main characters of Kishimoto's Naruto. Not to mention my personal two favorite characters!
This got typed up along with Ch8 because in my mind—and what a scary place THAT is!—they happen at about the same time. So, sorry for the delay that caused.
Chapter 9- Ode and RequiemA strong wind tugged at Uchiha Sasuke's thin raven bangs, brushing them back and forth in front of his eyes. He stood at the summit of one of Konoha's tallest buildings, his back turned on the continued celebrations of that ridiculous Leaf Festival. His Konoha headband, the thing that distinguished him as an adult and a full-fledged ninja in the eyes of his fellow villagers, lie stuffed in his back pouch. His hands rested within his pockets, thumbs sticking out over the fabric. He seemed completely stoic, silent, and statuesque as he stood there, trying to ignore the scents and sounds of the festival that still floated up to him.
Was he sorry that he had yelled at Sakura? No. Not really. He had warned her time and again, but she still had to open her mouth about it. In his mind, she had gotten exactly what she had deserved. Hopefully, that would be the end of everyone trying to get him to enjoy this foolishness.
Sasuke sighed to himself, eyes gazing out over the houses. His thoughts over this past week had been a jumble of past and present, and for the time being, he was content to allow his mind to wander through blessed nothingness. That was until a very harsh and familiar voice called out behind him.
"Sasuke." It was more of a snarl than anything, and Sasuke didn't have to turn around to see the face that matched that tone. He could just picture Uzumaki Naruto's face, contorted by anger, threateningly watching him.
A strange smirk came over the Uchiha's face, almost grateful for the distraction, "What is it you want…dobe?"
Spiky blonde hair also swayed at the mercy of the wind, freed from the blue fabric and metal headband that was carelessly shoved into his jacket pocket. Naruto glared at Sasuke's back, a glare so venomous that it was a small miracle that the Uchiha symbol didn't suddenly catch on fire, "Asshole."
"She told you?" Sasuke's smirk quickly vanished.
"She didn't tell me a damned thing. She didn't really have to." Naruto's eyes pierced through Sasuke like heated daggers. The blonde shinobi slowly took a step closer to his teammate, sandals crunching loudly on the rooftop, "All I know is that you upset her, and that's more than enough to piss me off!"
Sasuke scoffed, "Moron."
"Sasuke! Tell me what you did to Sakura-chan!" Naruto's voice echoed from the heights, "Did you know you made her cry?! Do you know she thinks you hate her now?!"
The Uchiha heir's voice was far softer, nearly lost to the whistling of the wind, "Fine. Let her think whatever in the hell she wants to. Just tell her to leave me alone."
It was a good thing that Sasuke was so fast; otherwise, Naruto's fist would have gone squarely into the back of his head, "You jackass! You're dead!" The enraged shinobi charged at his friend, fists swinging. But Sasuke was able to effortlessly dodge, popping up behind Naruto, hands still lazily resting in his pockets. This of course only drove Naruto crazy, and the blonde whirled in an attempt to kick Sasuke's head right off.
Sasuke ducked the kick, throwing himself forward at Naruto. The fox-boy fell backwards as Sasuke's shoulder slammed into his chest, "Dobe."
Naruto took a moment to recover from the blow, glaring dangerously up at the raven haired Uchiha, "I…I dunno what your damned problem is, Sasuke…but I'm gonna kick your ass!"
"You couldn't kick my ass if I was tied up, drugged out, pinned down, and half dead." A strange little smirk came over Sasuke's face again. When he was focused on throwing punches and flinging insults, his mind seemed more at ease.
Naruto, however good this was for the Uchiha, was not amused. His temper quickly got the better of him, and he wound up shouting something he knew he really shouldn't have, "You big baby! I'll bet you just love all the sympathy you get because you miss your parents! You're just doing this all for attention, aren't you, Baby-Sasuke?!"
There was suddenly a loud crunch, and Naruto felt as if a wrecking ball had just collided with his cheek.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Sasuke's demeanor again shifted dangerously fast, from cocky to enraged. He had never really hit anyone that hard before, and found that his knuckles were sore from the impact, "You think I like things the way they are?! You…you'll never understand!"
Naruto lifted a hand to rub his cheek, turning his head to spit out some of the blood that had pooled in his mouth from the force of Sasuke's punch, "Hey…I don't have any parents either. Do you see me carrying on with some Pity Party?"
"You're not like me."
"Yeah, I'm not. I'm not an asshole."
"Shut up…" Sasuke glared death at Naruto, shaking onyx orbs seizing the latest victim of his anger. Now he was taking this fight seriously. "Just…shut up!!" he lunged at Naruto, easily overtaking the fox-boy before he could dodge, and driving his heel into Naruto's stomach.
The blonde shinobi felt the air forced from his lungs. Thinking as quickly as he could manage, he latched onto Sasuke's ankle and twisted. The Uchiha flinched from the pain, but couldn't free his leg from his opponent's grip. Naruto then shifted under Sasuke's weight, forcing himself onto his feet and dragging Sasuke down. Sasuke moved a hand underneath him to keep his head from hitting the roofing, glaring up at Naruto as the blonde spoke, "You're…you're so weak, Sasuke! Picking on Sakura-chan…when all she wants to do is help you!"
"I don't want her help!" Sasuke growled, flipping his body around and sending his free leg into Naruto's back. The force of the blow caused Naruto to loose his grip on Sasuke's ankle, and Sasuke hopped back a safe distance to prepare for the next attack.
Naruto's eyes flickered like cold blue fire as he sized up his opponent, "She cares about you! I'll never understand why, but she does!" His fists clenched tightly as he again charged for a frontal assault on the Uchiha; but Sasuke was through playing around. Sasuke's eyes changed from an icy onyx shade to a brilliant crimson as he activated his Sharingan. In one swift move, the Uchiha heir was able to side-step Naruto's obvious attack, and sweep his legs out from under him. Naruto went sailing from the rooftop, falling the great distance to the ground and crashing into a lonely festival booth. Several of the villagers nearby stopped to stare at the great racket and see what had caused it. Sasuke easily jumped from the roof, rebounding off of a few other buildings to slow his descent and landed softly, cat-like on his feet. Naruto emerged from the rubble, eyes squinted in pain from the fall—he had, after all, just fallen from one of Konoha's tallest buildings! --But he still managed to get to his feet.
"I never asked for her to care." Sasuke had calmed himself somewhat, though still worked up enough to finish the brawl, "It's her own damned fault. And I definitely never asked for her stupid pity."
"Asshole…" Naruto wiped a thin trail of blood from his forehead onto his jacket sleeve, "You're gonna pay…for making Sakura-chan cry like that…"
"Try it" a pair of angry Sharingan glared down at his opponent. Sasuke was so focused on the Naruto in front of him, that the three Naruto behind him easily grabbed the Uchiha and held him still. While falling, Naruto had quickly performed his patented Kage Bushin no Jutsu before he had hit the booth, and now, his clones held Sasuke tightly, allowing the blonde shinobi to get in more than a few good hits. Sasuke was at first stunned by the clones, but he quickly reclaimed his anger. He wrenched a foot free from their grasp, and sent a kick right into Naruto's head. The fox-boy reeled, only slightly, but enough to force him to drop the Bushin no Jutsu. As the spare Narutos disappeared, Sasuke went back on the offensive, charging bare-fisted and full force at Naruto. Naruto blocked what he could, and countered as well against the onslaught.
The two engaged in a serious taijutsu brawl right in the middle of the streets, amidst a small, yet growing, crowd. For the most part, though, Sasuke's superior maneuvers gave him the upper hand in the fight. But Naruto certainly wasn't pulling his punches. The both of them wound up combating through most of Konoha. As one backed away, the other would chase, and so forth until both boys were dashing through the streets, toppling over festival stands as they went by. But the ninjutsu was very few and far between: this was a good old-fashioned beat-down between Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. Both young ninjas so enraged at the other that neither could even think clearly enough to implement Ninjutsu techniques.
Crowds of surprised onlookers followed the fight, flooding the streets with 'ohhh's and 'ahhh's. Not a one of them could make heads or tails of it. The Leaf Festival had always been a peaceful celebration of Konoha's rich heritage, but now, two of the most promising ninjas of the era were acting as if a war had been declared between them.
It was an exhausting fight on both sides. Naruto would not back down, and Sasuke would not calm down. After a good long while, there was a pause in the fight. Knuckles bloody, faces sore, panting for breath, Sasuke and Naruto glared at one another in silent disgust. The crowd closed in around them as they came to something of a standstill. They stood on even ground, in the middle of a main street, not more than an arm's distance away from each other. Keeping up the chakra for his Sharingan was starting to take some kind of toll on Sasuke, and he gradually allowed his eyes to return to normal. Naruto wheezed for air. He could easily release the Kyuubi chakra stored within him, and take Sasuke out in no time. But somehow…it wasn't enough. He wanted to hurt Sasuke, REALLY hurt Sasuke, so that the asshole would know exactly how Sakura-chan had felt. But there was something strange about the Uchiha heir's expression. As the battle went on, it seemed to soften into it usual cold and apathetic look.
But with the pause, Sasuke's mind had time to recall exactly why they were fighting. Instantly, his lip curled into a snarl as he took up the borrowed taijutsu stance of Rock
Lee, "Well? Is that all you have, loser?"
Naruto hesitated to respond. Clueless as he was about most things, the change in his opponent's expression was easy to catch. The blonde shinobi's eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of confusion and thought, "…"
"Well?!" Sasuke demanded louder, "What are you waiting for?!"
Again, Naruto said nothing.
Sasuke didn't like this. He wanted to fight. He wanted so badly to take out the aggression that had built up inside of him over it all. He didn't care if it was against Naruto, Sakura, Lee, Kakashi—hell, even Itachi! —He just wanted to fight until exhaustion, "Are you a coward all of a sudden, Naruto?! You want revenge on me for making Sakura cry? Then come at me!!"
"No." Naruto relaxed his stance, gingerly moving his left hand to grasp at his aching right shoulder.
Sasuke's eyes widened, either from the shock of the blonde's refusal, or the fear that he would be left to his own thoughts again, "Wh…what?!"
"I'm not fighting you anymore, Sasuke." Naruto's eyes were uncharacteristically cold, "I won't give you the satisfaction of a fight." Yes, of course every cell in his little blonde body was screaming to just run over there and punch Sasuke in his face so much that no girl would ever fall in love with him ever again. But if he continued this fight, he would only be giving Sasuke exactly what he wanted. Naruto stared at the beaten and bloodied Uchiha with a gaze that penetrated all doubting and bluffing, giving Sasuke no opportunity to be skeptical about his intentions. It was possibly the most mature, yet the cruelest, thing Naruto had done so far in his young life, "You wanna sob and mope about your family…go lock yourself back up in that house, and don't come back out."
It seemed that the very mention of his family had become so taboo lately. Sasuke forced whatever chakra he had left into his eyes and re-activated his Sharingan, his voice again hissing with detestation, "Naruto…!"
"Go back to feeling sorry for yourself, Sasuke!" Naruto screamed, causing the crowd around them to back away, "I hope…I hope you just die alone! Baby-Sasuke!" To the utter astonishment of his opponent, Naruto turned around, and limped away. As he went, Naruto fished his leaf headband out of his pocket and secured it back on his head. A section of the crowd parted for the fox-boy, the villagers looking on in amazement over the whole ordeal.
"Naruto, don't you dare walk away from me!" Sasuke would have ran right after him and kicked him while his back was turned, but truthfully, neither of them were in any condition to be running at the moment, "Naruto!! Come back here! I'm not finished with you yet!"
The blonde shinobi did his best to ignore Sasuke's voice as he slowly made his way through the crowd. This was good. This would really hurt Sasuke to his core…this would be enough.
Sasuke's entire face went red with anger and aggravation, his teeth clenching so tightly that his already bleeding lip began gushing even worse, "NA-RU-TOOOOO!!!" Again, his opponent, his 'friend', was unresponsive. Sasuke's eyes focused on Naruto's back. How dare he…how dare HE of all people preach to the Uchiha heir!! The orange-clad ninja gradually faded from Sasuke's sight, leaving the crowd to gawk at the remaining fighter for answers. They received none; only a few strangled sounds of irritation from the Uchiha, who was now so blinded with rage that he failed to even notice the crowd around him. Whatever ache was shaking Sasuke's body was brushed aside, and the raven-haired ninja dropped down and began pummeling the street with his already sore knuckles. This frustration…was going to kill him…
"Damn you, Naruto!! DAMN YOU!!!"
Author's Ending Rant- n.n I do so love angst! Especially Sasuke-angst! And I love it when Naruto borrows a clue from somewhere and acts mature/cool/awesome!
Well? Do we think Naruto has sufficiently gotten back at Sasuke for Sakura? Well, I do, anyway. Mental torture is so much worse than physical pain. Even Naruto figured that out! Good fox-boy! ::Tosses Naruto a bowl of Ramen::
And don't ask me why I decided to have them fight with their headbands off. It just kinda…seemed right. Like, I didn't want them wearing their headbands when they were both acting like such children.
Awww. But now the little dobe is all beaten up. I wonder, who-oh-whoever will help heal him and bandage him?! n.n Mwaa-haa-haaa…You'll have to wait until next time to find out!
BTW—have you noticed that 'dobe' is one of my favorite words? I'll TRY to use it less, I promise!