Last one for today. They won't all be that short either.
Sasuke is thinking of leaving again. Naruto knows he is. Bastard won't talk to anyone anymore. And here Naruto thought that things were getting better, back to normal, just like before the whole mess began. Here he thought that the news of Orochimaru's death would put that fear behind them once and for all.
Trust the prissy son of a bitch to go the other way.
Sakura sees the restlessness, too. She watches him with worried eyes -- they're not happy spring green like they were when the bastard left the hospital and was allowed to go on missions with them again. They're dark, like a forest just before a storm, with the animals scared into hiding -- all life hiding away, waiting for the thunder.
He wants her eyes to be full of life again. He wants his eyes to show anything but that horrible emptiness.
He even dreams of it -- alone in a deserted Konoha, calling and screaming and howling. Iruka and Kakashi and Sakura are listless, their eyes unseeing, looking right through him, and Sasuke is leaving and he runs and runs and can't catch up to him, can't actually leave the streets of the town behind. Sasuke disappears in the dark, hunting snakes and beasts that want nothing more than to kill him.
/Herd some big prey closer to home and stop whining/ Kyuubi growls, annoyed.
Naruto twitches, and wakes up enough to shut the voice off.
It doesn't stop him from asking Kakashi to teach more stuff to Sasuke. More dangerous stuff; no matter what the Council says about what a Genin of dubious allegiance should be allowed to know.
He tries to teach him the Rasengan too. Naruto isn't teacher material and Sasuke chafes at being taught by him -- that and his type of chakra isn't really adapted to Naruto's biggest move. Sasuke can't quite manage it, and it annoys him, but the approximation he gets is more than damaging enough.
Naruto still counts it as a success. So long as Sasuke works so hard to master it all, he's not thinking of what kind of prey he could find elsewhere.