Author's Note: Yo How is everyone? I'm terribly sorry about the long wait.

This chapter has actually been done since all the way back in May! I had planned to have it beta'd, but the person never got back to me with the edit. Eventually I just decided to post the original version.

Can't be that bad, right? After all, nothing else I've done has ever been beta'd. In any case, next chapter definitely won't take so long. (It's been started for a while.)

edited 08.04.06 - Many thanks to Berry, who reminded me about Sasuke's clothes. I totally forgot to write in when he changed. -sweat-

Warnings for this chapter: Freakin' goose, this story is so slow. Five chapters already and it's only been three days or something.

Everything else: See first chapter. -laziness-

Ch. 5: Falling Feathers

Pitter patter swish, swoosh drip creak, swoosh creeeak...

The rain was still going.

Swoosh creeeeak...

But that wasn't what was bothering Naruto.

Creeeeeeak...

A deep, gutteral growl resounded from the blond's figure as he lay stagnantly beneath the blanket, his back to his apparently sleeping companion.

For crying out loud, would you just shut up already!

Ever since he'd decided to lie down, the restless spirit of the dojo had been howling nonstop. It had grated on his nerves more and more as the night went on, and the pleading was finally becoming a bit too irritating to bear.

He wondered if it did this every night.

Creeeeeeeak...

Argh, that's it!

Ripping himself from the thin sheet of fabric he and Sasuke shared, Naruto threw his hood over his head and made his way frustratedly, yet as quietly as he could muster, out the back door and into the slowing rain. Immediately being accosted with the drenching coldness he'd been anxious to get out of earlier that night, his mood worsened.

"Hey!" he shouted into the yard, "Annoyed god here, trying to get some sleep! Can't you shut up for a while!"

The silent bellowing continued. It was as if this desperation was the only thing the dojo had known for a long while.

The blond let out an exasperated sigh. His hands were already starting to freeze, so he stuffed them in the pockets of his orange hoodie as he walked further into the overgrown grass, his shoulders raised and his back hunched forward.

"Damnit, what is it you want, you old bastard!"

And then, with the help of his own words, he realized the problem.

Want. Want.

This dojo... had a wish.

And Naruto had to help it find it.

At first, the young deity was slightly taken aback. Me? What the hell? What can I do?

Well, he was a god, and his job was to grant wishes. Though... This isn't my job anymore. I'm not even technically supposed to be here, and you want me to take care of this?

Why should he do anything? It wasn't his responsibility. It wasn't even really his business, when he and Sasuke were only staying there for one night. Let someone else with more experience handle it. And besides that, he didn't even have a lisence. He could get in real trouble if it ended up altering the world too much.

Creeeeeak...

If only there weren't something so familiar about that howling... something he identified with.

Scowling deeply, he looked around. Well, there was no denying that the place was in shambles. It was almost beyond help, the way half the once-beautiful buildings were falling apart with age and... something else. There's no way that all this was caused by Nature. As spiteful as she is, she's never this cruel. It's like... this place was attacked. And then abandoned. Nobody even tore it down to put it out of its misery.

And suddenly, Naruto found himself sympathizing with the spirit. He knew what it felt like to be abandoned, and he knew what it felt like to be lonely. And he knew what it felt like to not be at fault, and what it felt like to be able to do nothing about it. After all, what could a pile of planks and stone do for itself?

Naruto almost doubted there was much he could do. His power was ridiculously unstable, and the usable portion of said power relatively meager in comparison. If he tried to tap it, there was no telling what could happen. And yet...

And yet, he couldn't help it. That spirit, through its loneliness and helplessness... it was just like him. Or rather -- he gave a quick glance toward the main building, where a dark-haired teen still slept peacefully -- just like how he'd been before. He wanted to help, to ease the spirit's suffering.

The young man closed his eyes and pulled his still cold hands from his pockets to remove his hood once again, clearing his throat and fighting down a blush he knew had no rational purpose.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

Clasping his fingers together in a prayer-like stance, he began to sing. At first, it was only a sort of quiet humming, with shy inflections that had grown rusty without use. Nervous crescendoes were masked in an effort to maintain undiscovered. Eventually, however, the young boy allowed himself a bit more audacity, clear yet wordless notes flowing seamlessly, unlocking secret, intricate pathyways he hadn't dared touch in a long time. Misty, cradling fantasies -- huge, clandestine power.

And carefully, he drew it out.

A slow warmth enveloped him, and he felt an almost sudden synchronization where usually there was nothing but chaos. Energry flowed through his body, focusing and dispersing with every breath. It became apparent that the other side of his eyelids was being bathed in a soft glow, and he knew that his power, cautiously controlled and raw with beauty, had assumed its physical form, hovering above him like a guardian angel.

Alright, you crazy old spirit. You've got my support; it's all you now.

Sasuke had always been a light sleeper. When he was little, his parents used to have to sneak around the house like burglars at night so they wouldn't wake him, and still the youngest Uchiha often found himself tossing and turning in bed, trying to ignore the pitter-patter of bare feet scuttling down the hall like cockroaches.

It was never Itachi that woke him. If Itachi scuttled, he was absolutely silent about it.

And so, when he was abruptly awoken by a harsh clattering, he knew immediately that it wasn't his brother. It wasn't until he found that the uncomfortably hard surface he was lying on was a tatami floor that he realized it wasn't his parents. And it wasn't until he recognized the walls to be those of the dojo he'd crashed in the night before that he remembered his parents were dead.

He sat up rigidly, but almost immediately laid back down. He felt light-headed. In fact, his whole body was tingling with a sensation he'd never felt before. It was almost as if... his very being were being pulled. It was very gentle, very airy, and so close to nonexistent that it felt nice.

He decided he'd ignore it. That clattering was still there, and his first order of business was to find out what was making that racket, then tear it to tiny pieces so he could get some sleep. After all, he figured he kind of deserved it after the hellish night he'd had. He'd been kicked out of his dormitory, forced to hole up in a creepy building, and rained on, not to mention having fallen off of said creepy building. He'd have broken his neck if it hadn't been for --

Hold on, where's Uzumaki?

Sitting up again suddenly, Sasuke realized that his companion had disappeared. How could he have not noticed? Was the idiot there when he woke up? No, he didn't think so. Then where could he have gone? According to the blond's own words, it couldn't have been too far...

And then, with the burst of consciousness he became aware of something else: a quiet, but steady voice coming from beyond the back door of the dojo. It was soft and melodious, and vaguely familiar, though he couldn't even begin to remember where he'd heard it before. Looking toward the source of the sound, a faint glow from the other side of the door became apparent.

What the hell is going on out there?

Sasuke lifted himself from the floor silently, calling on well-practiced skills to keep his movements unnoticeable and inaudible, and began inching his way toward the entrance to the backyard. Once close enough, he leaned gently against the wall next to the door, and took a deep breath. Whatever was beyond that opening was going to be pretty weird, he knew. In fact, it seemed like since that afternoon, every second just got weirder.

Of course, he also knew that whatever it was, it was nothing he couldn't handle. Slowly, he craned his neck around to peer outside.

The first things he saw were various floating objects making their way to and fro, seemingly all on their own. Pieces of wood ranging from planks to splinters, chips of long broken ceramics, shards of glass, fallen shingles, metal pipes, stones, and even paint chippings, each with their own peculiar glow about them, glided from their places strewn across the yard toward unnamed destinations.

After a few moments of observation, Sasuke's ears started picking up a clattering coming from behind him. Whipping his head around, he could only watch as the broken sword rack lifted itself from the floor, followed by fragments of the front doors and various ornaments from the shrine. As the sliding doors unbent themselves and the sword rack fastened itself to the wall above where it had laid, Sasuke's realized, his eyes widening comically: everything was being fitted back into place, in effect, reconstructing the ruins of the dojo.

He turned back toward the door. As the voice he'd been hearing grew subtly stronger, the tingling pull in his body became more difficult to ignore, though still immeasurably weak. Whatever it was, it was probably coming from the same phenomenon that was causing the dojo to rebuild itself. With a curious frustration, Sasuke brought his head fully into the doorway.

The blond with the orange hoodie and blue jeans was undeniably the Uzumaki boy he'd met that day. His hair and skin seemed to actually shine, and with his neck bowed, eyes shut, and expression soft, he looked almost... beautiful.

A part of him didn't seem to be as surprised as he thought he should've been. It was almost as if he'd known in his gut from the moment he'd woken up and found Naruto missing that the deity was the cause of the commotion. Strangely, however, Naruto was not the source of the mysterious light that somehow bathed the grounds of the dojo.

The creature that hovered behind the blonde boy defined beauty.

Its lower half seemed to be engulfed in a ribbony, white substance that spiraled out from Naruto's form. Pale, milky skin covered its torso, perfect and glowing, and unmarred by clothing. Its face was framed by crimson hair, shining like spider silk as it fell among its eyes and past the nape of its neck. Its eyes themselves were closed, guarded by long, reddish eyelashes, and its moist, pink lips moved softly in a matching pattern to the blonde boy's, though it still seemed that only one voice sang. Its shoulders poured themselves into thin arms, and further into graceful, flawless hands, which rested briefly at its collarbone before flowing outward in a giving motion and coming back to clasp together with its opposite, all the while mimicking the movements of the deity from whose back its body seemed to emanate. From its own back streamed shining, glorious wings, as large as perhaps Naruto's whole body and blinding in the whiteness of their feathers. They contrasted deeply to the crimson-furred appendages that flowed from its tailbone, writhing and glittering almost as if fighting with the angelic wings for the title of most beautiful.

One, two... Sasuke counted. Nine.

And suddenly, something was different. It was as if the air had somehow become cooler, and yet the pull on him had become stronger, almost warmer. He could actually feel it. Even the song seemed to have changed somehow. He glanced up to the ethereal creature's face to see if its lips were still moving, and found himself gazing into intensely fierce eyes, one blue and soft and the other harshly red, its pupil slittled like a cat's.

It was looking at him.

Sasuke then realized that he was standing fully in the doorway, not concealing himself at all any longer. The song trailed off.

Naruto was looking at him, also.

But unlike the winged creature with mismatched eyes, Naruto's eyes expressed anxiety, almost horror.

Up until that point, the two beings had moved in sync with each other, but that connection ended as one of the crimson tails gave a violent swish and the arms of the entity to whom it belonged dropped quickly to its sides as if preparing for action.

Sasuke took a nervous step backward. The creature growled, so unlike its beautiful appearance that for a moment the Uchiha was unsure of its origin. Naruto's head snapped around to see the creature, its features sparked with fury, and his eyes widened in panic.

Don't tell me he didn't know it was there...? That would've been a little on the far fetched side, even for the rather obtuse blonde boy, so Naruto's reaction only served to confuse him more. In the end, it seemed the only thing Sasuke could be sure about was that something was very, very wrong.

He didn't have the chance to figure out anything else before the creature rushed him.

He could barely see it, all fiercely glowing fury and pale flesh and whipping red and quick as lightning and yet he couldn't move at all. It was like diving into a pool of light.

And finally, he knew something else for certain.

I'm going to die in this light.

And then it was gone in a flash of liquid white, a yell, and more falling feathers than he could ever possibly count.

He lost consciousness.

He awoke what felt like days later. His whole body felt like iron, stiff and heavy, and he had a headache. He was vaguely aware of something soft under his head, but the rest of his body lay on some uncomfortably hard surface.

"Uchiha...?" he heard distantly. The voice was tired, but hopeful, and within a few moments, fully recognizable.

He opened his eyes to find a pair of dusty blue peering down at him from his side. There were deep bags of purpled skin beneath them.

"Uzumaki," he acknowledged.

He glanced further, past the blonde hair that ran unkempt across the nape of the boy's neck, to his shoulders, on which hung only a flimsy, black t-shirt. It was then that he noticed how indecently cold he was. Right, last he checked, it was the middle of a cold October night.

Turning his head, he looked about himself. He was back in the main building of the dojo, lying on the stiff tatami. And yet, something about the place was different.

His gaze fell on the shrine a few yards away. It was clean and sturdy. And whole.

No way... He fought his way into a sitting position, ignoring the sharp jolt of pain that it sent up his spine. The blanket that had been covering him shrugged down to his waist.

But wasn't that... just a dream?

He could barely even remember it.

"Thank Heaven," the blond's voice suddenly broke in, laughing a little. "I was starting to think I'd have to take you to a hospital!"

"What happened? How long have I been asleep?"

"Almost a whole day," Naruto replied.

Well, Sasuke thought, that explains the headache.

The young deity continued. "Last night, I couldn't sleep 'cause the dojo kept whining and screeching, so I went out to try and shut it up a little. I guess you woke up, and then my... power got out of control and tried to attack you. But I, of course, being the greatest god ever, managed to call it back just before it got you."

He finished with a grin, but Sasuke stared at his fatigued visage and frowned.

"You haven't slept or eaten at all, have you?"

Naruto's grin dropped. "Well," he started, "we don't really have any food around here yet, and-"

"You idiot!" the Uchiha cut him off, tugging the blanket off himself. His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of orange where he'd been lying. It was Naruto's hoodie, which he guessed he'd been using as a pillow. "And I bet you've been sitting around in just a t-shirt, too! Are you trying to kill yourself!"

The blond was starting to look honestly offended. "Hey! I'm a god, and a little perk of being immortal is that you don't die!"

And then, Naruto sneezed.

Sasuke sighed exasperatedly. "But apparently, you get sick."

The pale, but healthy boy raised a hand to the other's head. Naruto flinched away a bit, but his determined companion just grabbed a shoulder with his other hand to keep him still.

The tanned forehead beneath Sasuke's palm was very, very warm.

He didn't know much about divine physiology, but he was almost positive that nobody, mortal or otherwise, should be quite that hot.

"You have a fever," he assessed. Under the fingers of his other hand, he felt the cotton-clad shoulders trembling slightly. "And your shaking with chills."

"I am not!" Naruto jerked back, slapping the invading hands away.

"It should be you under that blanket, dumbass," Sasuke stated, grabbing the hoodie from the floor. He shook it relatively free of wrinkles, then threw it toward the other teen. "Put this back on. And lie down."

Naruto took the garment, but stubbornly refused to put it on. "No! What makes you think you can tell me what to do?"

"The fact that you obviously can't take care of yourself," the dark-haired boy answered easily, rising to his feet.

"I can take care of myself just fine!" the blonde retreated, scooting backward across the tatami as Sasuke advanced.

"Right, that's why you're sick as a dog."

"I'm not sick!"

"Bullshit."

"Why do you care?"

Sasuke stopped in his tracks, Naruto's back against the wall. Like a trapped rabbit, yet... a defiant, stubborn, trapped rabbit.

"I don't care," he said, turning and starting toward his luggage. "Just put the damn shirt on and lie down."

He could feel the deity's blue eyes on him as he bent down to unzip the duffle bag with his clothes in it (and was well aware that Naruto wasn't putting the hoodie on). His pants were still dirty from falling in the mud the day before, and it was beginning to feel highly uncomfortable. Grabbing out a fresh pair of blue jeans, he turned his head to glare at Naruto. The blond looked away hastily with a grimace.

After changing his pants, he examined his shirt. It wasn't really clean anymore, but it would live another day. They didn't have handy access to a laundromat, so he'd have to conserve clothing as much as possible. He could probably shower at the university.

Next, he moved to his backpack. Nestled inside was his wallet, which he pulled out and shoved in a back pocket of his jeans, the long chain attached to it coming around to snap about a front belt loop.

Naruto sounded almost meek as he asked, "Where are you going?"

Sasuke hoisted his leather coat from where it rested atop a still-unloaded suitcase. "I'm going out to find something to eat. You stay here, get some rest."

And with that, he pulled his collar close to his neck and slid open the front sliding doors, leaving quietly.

As he made his way down the stone path toward his glistening, black motorcycle, he noted that the front yard looked almost the same as it had when they'd first arrived.

He must not have been able to finish fixing up the whole place.

He undid a zippered pouch in his coat and fished around inside, a moment or so later extracting the keys to his bike.

Dealing with an obnoxious god is bad enough, he thought. "What the hell am I going to do with a sick, obnoxious god?"

tbc...

No preview this time, because I'm lazy. You'll just have to wait and see what happens.