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The Day I Didn't See You

An Epilogue

Days went by, and so did years. Ever since that time, Naruto never returned to Konoha.

╙ A silencing tribute to Naruto ╛

Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto, all three of team 7, were together contemplating on what had recently happened. 3yrs ago none of them had ever imagined something so big could have went down. " Remember that time when… and the bridge…" " Yes." Sasuke and Sakura both reassured Naruto as he gave that silly smile he always gives when embarrassed. All three of them were sitting on different tree branches of the same tree. This old tree had become and remained a symbol of each one's soul. Sakura lightly kicked her feet back and forth while looking down. " I didn't ever want to admit it Naruto… but you've grown. Not just in height but in mind." A smile crept up her face although it seemed wistful. Naruto didn't say a word. He only looked down at his feet as well, and then smiled. Sasuke leaned against the trunk of the tree with hands in pockets and grunted as usual. " He's certainly become more reckless I would say." The Uchiha stated in turn as if the remark were expected of him. But despite his flat town he smiled in return. They all took their time to breath in the moment. " Well…" Sakura began as she began to stand up. " I better get home now. " It's way after midnight and my mom might get worried." To say the least, ever since the 'event' team 7 met up each afternoon at the tree that kept a piece of each of their souls. None of the adults would say otherwise. It was expected of the three. After all, each one needed each other as much as the other. " See you guys tomorrow!" Naruto bit his lower lip and nodded in return. After Sakura was way into the distance Sasuke looked the other orphan in his lowered eyes. " You haven't told her?" Naruto didn't answer. Sasuke just stared in silence for a while before answering again. " Your silence was just as good as lying to her you know." " I know!" Naruto spat back towards Sasuke as fear flooded his eyes. " I know." He hadn't taken his eyes off his feet ever since this morning. The first thing he saw this morning when waking up was the bare skin of his toes, and ever since he had been starring that direction with a mournful look on his face. Sasuke just stared at Naruto for a while then sighed and closed is eyes. " Why?" Sasuke asked. For the first time out of today he looked up. " Huh?" The blonde asked in return. Sasuke opened his eyes giving a hard glare. " I should be the one leaving." Naruto looked taken back and started to stand " But Sasuke I…" " Your just as stupid as ever!" Sasuke screamed and the fox boy froze in the middle of standing, crouched with his hands on his knees shocked. " Wha-? No. No Sasuke, that's not true at all." Naruto reassured with a smile as he reached his total height. " You don't understand!" Suddenly the words began to hurt. " You've never understood!" Naruto couldn't help but seem confused around Sasuke anymore. Every time the three were together everything worked out perfectly, but it was when Sakura left Sasuke would lash out towards Naruto. " Maybe everything is fine and dandy with you about this, but I'm not." Sasuke growled from his part of the tree. Naruto looked guilty, but his mind was made up. " I know I shouldn't just let her find out, but jeez Sasuke, you wouldn't begin understand how it feels to have to say good by to your first and only love." Naruto blushed and quickly smiled in an embarrassed fashion while scratching the back of his head. But no sooner after stating the words he spoke a pair of hands were pinning him on the base of the tree branch. " Don't ever say those words. Again." Cold black eyes pierced blue ones and suddenly Sasuke had let go. The blonde sat up, rubbing his sore arms somewhat angered by the others reaction. Even so, Naruto and Sasuke sat beside one another in the usual silenced atmosphere.

Sasuke had waited out Naruto for the first time, and so the blonde silently nodded towards the black haired one and departed homeward, though he did take his time doing so. Sasuke watched over him the whole way. He was now but a speck on the horizon, hands shoved in the orange and black jacket, and no more headband gracing the not so young boy. ' He has grown.'

It was starting up again. The rain was now pouring down like crazy. The rain, that was it, that's where this flood of memories came from. He was 'not' feeling remorseful. " Dammit." A young man in his early 20's sat down beneath the thick canopy of a tree. Obviously it wasn't thick enough for the young man was dampening further. He was obviously a wonderer. He slipped off a dark chocolate trench coat draping it over him self for warmth. But, no matter what, he would not take off the black scarf, which covered everything from the bridge of his nose downward. It had been meant to protect him from the sudden fall weather that it had seemingly become overnight. Reddening leaves lay dead across the ground as if a battlefield of blood. The man sighed and closed his eyes. ' It was for the best.' Nearby some bushes began to quake and the man took no time in standing up, throwing the jacket to his side. Blonde hair and blue eyes appeared. The man's mouth hung slightly ajar, although it was not seen through the scarf wrapped tightly about his lower face. As he stood soaked, rigid, a small boy with blonde hair and blue eyes appeared from the bushes wearing a head protector. The boy was burnt on different parts of his body and just after tearing out from the bushes had collapsed. " Are you…" The boy gasped then fell into a fit of coughs with a pained look. The young man ran up to the boy, grabbing him by the arms he hoisted the young one up onto his back. " Hang on, there's a town just a few more miles ahead of here. We'll find you a good doctor there." He told the boy in a worried but caring voice as if he this were true. " You're…one of them." The blonde spoke toneless. " One of…? What? I'm sorry but we've got to get you to a doctor 'now', those burns look pretty bad." Adjusting the boy on his back the man started off towards what would soon be a city.

" Naruto." Sakura looked up at the regular meeting spot, into the canopy of the tree. He wasn't there. " Really now! I'm not surprised Sasuke isn't moping around here anymore, but Naruto too?" Sakura slowly dropped here head and turned away. For some reason, without Naruto or Sasuke in that tree… she could not feel their souls as she had planned. She had been the one to decide the meeting place. She had told them, no matter what; from that day forward a piece of each soul would remain there. For some reason though… she didn't feel that so true, she turned back and neared the tree once again. Taking an index finger she traced along the carvings of their names in the clay colored wood.

It was as if, Sasuke and Naruto had picked up those pieces and left.

" He'll be okay now. You're a good man dropping everything you own and walking on foot all the way here for… three hours you say?" " Yes sir." The young man replied unconsciously. " Now, now, don't look so glum sir, the boy is fine. It'll do you good to talk a little." The doctor told him. " Also…" The doctor looked down and read from a paper on a clipboard. " It looks like this boy you picked up is from a ninja clan." " So… he's a ninja?" The young man asked. " Looking that way." A ninja in these parts was hardly.

" What puzzles me though… what would a ninja, much less a child ninja, be doing in these parts so far from their own?"

" Sasuke!" Sakura saw Sasuke from a distance off, training. She fell to the ground and clasped her hands over her knees as she tried to pull herself together. " I…finally found… one of you." She wheezed with each withdraw of a breath. Sasuke wasn't paying attention though. He kept on with his assault towards a wooden target. Sakura then looked up at her team member, friend, and first love with a face that radiated like the sun. She smiled and cocked her head to one side. " So, where's Naruto?" Sasuke further proceeded in training only with the minor change in his hardened glare.

The young man was sitting, half asleep in the waiting room on a sofa. "Sir." A young nurse nudged the man delicately on his shoulder.

He stirred then looked up with a sleepy expression, eyelids barely above pupils. " You can see him now."

" What are you talking about, Sasuke? When and…why?" Sakura's panicked face was shining with what tears had escaped and clung to her once golden peach cheeks. " I don't know." Sasuke said annoyed and little hateful. " This is terrible Sasuke! Just terrible!" Sakura paced back and forth in front of the other whom still struck at the wooden target menacingly. " I know! We have to go get him! We'll bring him back. Everything will be just fine." Sakura popped her right fist in her open left hand signifying her idea. " No. We. Won't!" Sasuke yelled the last part and the log snapped in half. Sakura shrieked in surprise, but afterwards stood limp. " You wont help me?" She asked with a trembling voice. Sasuke was now sitting cross-legged, back to Sakura. He didn't say a word.

No birds would dare chirp after such a display and so everything was silent, except for the occasional breeze.

Sakura looked back at Sasuke for a final time, and then tore off into the city.

Sasuke let his face slide into cupped hands, and cried.

" Are you alright?" The young man asked the rescued boy who sat up against the headboard of the bed. He wasn't looking very pleased, but he wasn't looking all that frightened either. He just lay there, back propped against headboard; bandages wrapped completely down his right arm. " Did they say if your skin would heal completely?" The young man asked feeling the boy's intensity.

" I don't care." He flat out stated. The young man felt a little bad for prying and stood silently by the boy's side. " I'm sorry." He said and, for the rest of the night, did not leave his side.

This man could not be…no, was not a threat, so was accepted by the younger one there on out.

The day before Naruto disappeared

A meeting was being held; it had been kept from many people for a specific reason. It was a meeting on the fox.

Kakashi, Gai, Asuma, Kurenai, and then Tsunade entered the room along withsome others. " Everyone knows what this is about by know, right?" Nobody answered. The man stifled a small harsh laugh. " I know you all do. Even kept secret from the attendees, secrets in Konoha never keep for long." The hard expressions didn't change. The people of Konoha looked bitter if anything.

Kakashi, who was so normally calm when it came to his students, also wore a hateful glare.

" Where's your village? I'll take you back." The young man spoke softly. " Don't bother. I don't have one." The young man wistfully watched the boy walking beside him, crunching each reddening leaf in his path with arms linked behind his head.

They were silent for a while until the boy looked up towards the man. He had soft blue eyes and raven black hair.

The whole bottom of his face was covered over by a scarf. He continued to stare until the older of the two realized this and a hidden smile portrayed across his face. It was hidden, but even so the boy could see it in those deep cerulean eyes, which were filled with care and trust. " Why are you looking at me?" He asked amused. " I am not!" The boy retorted embarrassed and looked away.

' He just… looks so cool.' The boy closed his eyes and kept walking forward.

" So you're saying Naruto should no longer be advanced in the teaching of ninjutsu? No. I can't agree to that." Kakashi faced a man about his own age wearing tinted glasses and a black suit. " You don't understand." Tsunade told them stepping forward, past Kakashi. " Naruto is a hero." Her eyes shimmered dangerously towards the men. " Mrs. Hokage." The man laughed. " He may be a hero to all these country bumpkins out here, but in the true cities were technology is born… he's just like the rest of us." He laughed coolly. " I do believe I happen to be the hokage here!" The woman snapped and the man smiled her way reassuringly. " Yes mam." He paused to look around the room. " I do believe you are the authority over Konoha village, but everywhere else… I am authority over that much more." Everyone could literally feel the tension rise.

" Say… where'd you get those scars from?" The young man asked interested. The boy opened his eyes and looked back towards the man. " My face?" He asked rubbing a smooth hand over the three thin scars on his right cheek and then his left as if he had just now remembered them by mention. " It's a long story." He said looking down at his feet. " And I'll be here for a long time." The man said in return. " Give me something to call you by then." The boy retorted. " It gets annoying over time, calling you by 'hey'." The young man looked as if he were thinking this over. " Call me… Kesaku." He beamed. " Everyone at my village calls me Kyu. So…yeah."

The man called Kesaku suddenly knelt down before the boy called 9 and hugged him. " Hello, Kyu." He whispered.

" How is he even a threat to the other cities?" Tsunade persisted. " We all make sacrifices Tsunade-san, and I wasn't exactly purposing the boy just be expelled from being a shinobi, I mean Naruto should be exterminated. You see he's more like a biohazard to Konoha and perhaps the rest of the world."

to be continued...?

-Thanks for reading what I have!-

-Happy fox!- Wee Naruto is nogitsune!