Chapter 01

Half-Asleep

by

ensngre

Sasuke stared at him. And started laughing! "What's so fun! Huh! Care to tell me that!" Naruto growled, trying to kill his old companion with his glaring. Goddamn abomination, you…

Luckily enough, Sasuke stopped laughing after a while, because the dark-haired prodigy knew himself that a laughing Sasuke were not appropriate in such a situation as this. He silenced himself, shook his head and sighed; returned to the matter of eating up the delicious cup of pork ramen – as Naruto usually stated that it was – but this was certainly no usual scenario. Of course, he'd been through this himself a four-or-so times, but he knew that his own father and mother combined were more tolerating than Naruto's own father. And that was saying a lot. "So, how's Hanabi reacting to this?" He smirked, barely able to supress another wave of laughter that so desperately wanted to form in his throat. A chuckle got out.

Naruto stopped in his tracks, appearing to be thinking and reconsidering, before picking up the eating (with chopsticks) again. "I don't know… haven't met her in nearly three weeks." He mumbled. It didn't surprise Sasuke, the weird affection one of the most well-known ninjas in the world and the very young but incredibly talented Hyuuga had for each other was known only in their closest circle of friends.

They all knew they loved each other, but it was weird that they weren't together more often. It seemed as though there was no desire or lust between the two, but at the same time, both of them had a burning obsession for one another. It contrasted oddly in Sasuke's eyes. "And you're not going to see her?" Sasuke asked, already knowing the answer and the real answer behind it.

Naruto shrugged. Heh, as expected… you're so predictable when it comes to Hanabi, Naruto. "I don't want to. Don't need to…" But he did. Every waking hour, he thought about her. Sometimes, he became angry at himself for being so fucking stupid. The worst part of it wasn't that he was stupid, but it was that he was aware of it and yet did nothing to calm his nerves. He could break down within minutes, even when knowing he could be rebuild just by looking at her. He guessed that somewhere in the core of his being, he liked, no, loved pain. Especially when coming to matters regarding her, and especially if it were self-inflicted – like the times he lied to himself, creating fantasies in which she hurt him badly. Sometimes, not occuring often, he enlightened himself that she had never hurt him in any way. And that she probably never would.

Sasuke sighed again. Naruto had always neglected encouragement from others, even from his own Hanabi. He was stubborn, if he was sad or even suicidal, he would be in that mood until he decided to stop with it. "If you say so," Sasuke answered to the blonde's previous attempt of lying – which had failed badly, there were only two people in the world that knew exactly when the popular shinobi lied, and that was Sasuke and his elder brother. Changing subject, "are you occupied tomorrow, Naruto?" His blonde companion shrugged, only half-listening. He was in his own world, the world of thoughts. He needed to be interrupted. "Or are you heading out to buy a ring and suit?" Sasuke smirked, again. But it worked.

"What the hell are you talking about? Sasuke, have you gone mad? I'm not marrying Hinata," Naruto answered after being snapped out of his thoughts, obviously missing the point.

"I repeat; are you occupied tomorrow noon?" Taking a serious but casual expression on his face, clearly declaring that there would be no more half-witted attempts of teasing the slightly younger young man. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"No, I wouldn't think so…" He began, getting a little interested. "How come?"

Sasuke smirked once again, proving once and for all that he was the (in)famous Smirking-san that Naruto himself had named him so many years ago. "Itachi-nii got challenged by a team of some rather cocky Stone-nins yesterday. Apparently, they're a new team integrated in the Five Clover Peace-program," he said, smirk slightly shrinking and eyes narrowing; a look of excitement. "According to aniki, they seemed quite skilled. They were very eager to see the Mitsukado."

Naruto put up a very amused smile. "That formation?" Naruto chuckled a bit, closing his eyes and crossed his arms, straigthened his back, and said, "If that's the case, I'll make myself available tomorrow." He opened his left eye, and looked to his long-time friend that sat on the same side of the counter in the ramen-stand, and smirked. "Can't decline to kicking some Stone-nins asses, can we?" And the two burst out in manical laughters, something that wasn't rare whenever one of the famous Uchiha-siblings came in contact with Yondaime's legacy.

Naruto walked down the not-too-busy streets of Konoha; there was some public holiday that he couldn't recall the name of. Most people either still slept, somehow stayed inside, or was visiting the many hot-springs Konoha was famous for.

But some people never, ever changed, and preferred to treat all days as normal. One such man was Orochimaru. "Orochimaru-sensei! Behind you!" Naruto shouted out, and the snake-like man stopped and turned around; when he spotted the blonde, the same blonde took out his right hand out of his pocket and waved a small and anonymous wave.

When Naruto had catched up, the pale-skinned old man greeted him. "Why, Naruto-kun. Long time, no see." He never was friendly and made the conversations as short as possible, even when coming to the top-ninja Konoha had ever in their history produced. He admitted; he had been a bit jealous of the young ones massive potential, but that was in the past. Although he would never admit it to anyone, he admired him in some way or another. And he felt quite proud that he'd been one of his few teachers over the years, even though he hadn't gotten that much time to train him as he wished he would have. Anko still had that childish rivalty with the blonde, having her teacher almost taken away from her years ago by the said blonde.

But he knew the admiration was mutual. The young man had respect for his elders. Orochimaru knew this, and almost chuckled whenever he was treated with more respect than the blonde heeded to the white-haired Sannin. Oh yes, Naruto had been a joker when dealing with Jiraiya.

Naruto smiled. "Was the mission to the Mist successful, sensei?" He asked, not having seen his ex-teacher for months. He was happy to see the face which many thought of being creepy.

Orochimaru half-grinned. "Do you have such confidence in me, that you're questioning whether or not I was capable of completing the mission? Naruto-kun," he mocked. He, best of all, knew Naruto's weaknesses. Even better than his own father did, probably. That was a trait, and a trait he was proud to have been given. The boy had been monstruous in power and blistering with intelligence when he was handed to the snake-sannin the first time, but he had many flaws, far too many for a good shinobi. Orochimaru had been the one to polish that fine diamond until perfection, something Jiraiya hadn't been able to do. He had only been able to carve it out of the massive mountain that had once surrounded the blonde. He seriously doubted that Naruto's father would've done a better job, and he was proud of that, too, being able to surpass the super-genious that was the Fourth Hokage in some aspect.

"Of course not!" Naruto spatted out. And decided to give him a little of his own medicine… "But I confess that I was a bit worried about you, sensei," and, seeing his former teacher grit his teeths, formed a smirk of victory. "Anyway, I'm on my way of meeting up with the Uchiha-brothers. Some stupid Stone-nins challenged Itachi two days ago, and he wants revenge…" Now, that would stir the Sannin. Itachi was pretty much a rival to Orochimaru of the same caliber, if not higher, than his other rival, the toad-sannin. For some reason, neither Itachi nor Jiraiya was interested to fight one another; that was the extent of their distaste for each other. Meaning, the two's strengths couldn't be compared, as they had never had a fight. Which pissed Orochimaru off, because the last match between himself and the Uchiha-prodigy had ended with a loss on his part. "I take it you want to come and see the Sanjuusou in action?"

"Well, that would certainly be entertaining. Death-match?" he joked. Or, Naruto wasn't too sure if he joked or not – the Sannin had a tendency to be rather sadistic at times. But deep down, he was a good man, Naruto knew this.

"…no death-match." Naruto shrugged, and put his hands up in the air. "They're a new team in the FCP-program. We'll be in some deep shit if we were to kill them." Yeah. The FCP-program would be severly damaged if something like that happened, after little more than five years of World Peace. And besides, Naruto didn't like killing people. Orochimaru decided that it wouldn't be worth his time, after all.

"Whaaaaat?" Naruto was surprised. "Is that you? Deidara? You were one of the Stone-nins?" Shit, if it's true, then this'll get far too dangerous for a mere sparring-match. He'll blow us to pieces.

"Well, it seems like it… mm." Deidara said, seemingly bored. "Master Sasori sends his deepest condolescences, yeah?" Still in the same, bored, monotone voice.

Naruto paused for a little. Condolescences for what? "Hey, wait a minute. No-one's died." He looked puzzled. Well, he always was, when dealing with either Deidara or Sasori, or more so with both.

"Oh. Well, I'll tell him that, yeah," he said. No-one understands creative minds. "Well, then, I'll get out of the way. I didn't bring any high-quality clay with me, anyway, mm." And backed off.

Somewhere in the vincinity of the fight between one of the most hailed three-man team of Konoha and an incomplete six-man team from the Stone, three ordinary Genins sparred against each other, being watched by their Jounin-teacher.

Wrong. Those Genins weren't ordinary. They were the top-team that managed to graduate from the Ninja-academy two years ago, and high expectations were held to them. Well, they were the third top-students of their generation in Konoha, and the team had been put together because of the lack of outstanding teams in the higher ranks of lately.

"Pick up the pace, Ibara." The Jounin excluded to one of the genins, a girl with shoulder-long hair and a bleak bandana covering her forehead. She nodded, and pushed back a boy named Utatane, but which later led to being cornered to a tree by a girl with waist-long pitch-black hair and white, creamy eyes. The girl smirked, marking that defeat had been brought upon the slightly taller girl, which had the tree just behind her back.

Suddenly, five figures came flying through the bushes that surrounded the Seventh Training Ground in Konoha, in which the three Genins just had ended their spar. The figures were that of two females and three males, all of whom at least surpassed the age of 20. The three Genins looked to their Jounin-teacher, confusion plastered on their faces, and getting into their respective defensive-stances.

After the five (which now lay scattered on the ground), came three well-known shinobis, walking out of the same patch of broken bushes that the men before them had crashed through, creating an arrow-formation, with a blonde guy in the lead, and two dark-haired men following after at each side, a manlength behind. The younger of the two dark-haired men had his mouth curled up in a smirk, the other two looked bored, but somehow content in a weird sort of way. Eventually, they stopped, and after a while, they stepped forward to the fallen ninjas, and helped them up while exchanging comments with each other.

Moments after, something shadowed the entire training-area, appearing in the sky. It descended, and it soon became clear that it was a bird – or, more correctly, a flying bird-statue/model. And there was an eccentric-looking man standing on top of it. Most people wouldn't know it was a man, but Hanabi had somehow learned how to extinguish the gender of humans, because of some rather feminime-looking cousins.

"Absolutely disgraceful, yeah," the weird, blonde man said after hopping down from the bird to the ground. One of the battered and exhausted Jounin's, judging by their jackets, spoke up with almost no dignity left.

"Ca-captain…" But he was interrupted by the blonde.

"Get up on Yuucyou," he ordered. When they had done that, he got up himself and took off with the bird and the Jounin's, flying to the hospital of Konoha without saying goodbye. The two black-haired Leaf-companions both followed the bird with their eyes, before it was gone, when the younger one sighed and disappeared, leaving only smoke behind. The older disappeared no longer than half a second after, he too leaving a cloud of smoke behind.

Now, the unbruised blonde, one Jounin and his students were the only ones left in the area.

"Uh…" Naruto began, scratching his head and feeling his head heat up slightly. "Heya, Hanabi-koi." Silence ensued, and Naruto started to regret that he let that suffix let out. Curse me and my stupid clumsiness.

The bandana-girl, evidently named Ibara, was the first one to speak up. "Koushoku-sama…!" The members of the famous trio Sanjuusou (consisting of Yondaime-sama's son, and the two genius brothers of the Uchiha) had all gotten nicknames. His were the color of Yellow, and he hated it. He had inherited the color, somewhat, from his father. Everyone that didn't know him personally usually called him that. He frowned.

The girl was surprised, looking at her talented team-mate with a look that was asking for explanation of how she knew one of her biggest idols, and one of the legendary Sanjuusou's. Hanabi noted Ibara's expression, and her cheeks became a light tone of pink. Damn you, Naruto… She looked directly at Naruto, either seeking for help or for something that could help her confirm that it really was him.

That was one of the things that Naruto was attracted to her for. She would always look people directly in their faces, not budging an inch, whatever the situation was. She didn't hide like other girls when confronted to something that made them feel vurnable or just something that they didn't understood or something that gave them uneasy feelings. He knew that this was quite uneasy for her, she wasn't insensitive or anything of the sort, but she didn't budge, just locked her incredibly beautiful eyes with his.

"I…" Her thin lips started, not letting the embarrassment reach her voice. She would handle this calmly, she told herself, not lose it, and…

"We're dating," Naruto suddenly said. Upon receiving the chocked look Hanabi had painted on her small face-frame, he shrugged. "What? It would come out sooner or later." Silence ensued once again, and it lasted a few seconds, before her weird team-mate just popped and fainted, dropping to the ground. Naruto closed his eyes and sighed.

"Was that really necessary, Naruto?" The feeble girl asked. No, she wasn't feeble… but she became that whenever she were around the blonde. She didn't want to look strong in front of him, afraid that if she were to show any sign of her not needing him (for protection or other), he would leave her. And she did need him, more than anything else. No-one really knew how dependent she was on him. Not even himself, or her elder sister, for that sake. She was nothing without him, she told herself, and part of that was true.

Naruto shrugged. "What does it matter? I'm sorry if I screwed up for you, but what's done is done. There's no meaning to ponder on it any further. You should know this." She did. Naruto knew that she was far more mature and understanding of the world than her peers. She reminded him a little of himself when he was that age. So mature and so powerful, but yet so vurnable.

"You didn't screw things up for me, Naruto…" She answered, not wanting him to misunderstand. The young man was a super-genius, much more so than his father, and had played a vital role in the Fourth World War – but he really was dumb when it came to reading other peoples intentions, or feelings. Just one word misplaced in a sentence could have dire consequences. It was tiring for her, to the point where she would just like to forget it all. But it was worth it, worth everything. She could sell her soul to the devil to just be with him, and she would still consider it to be a good decision. "But you should worry more about yourself… I trust my team, but Ibara-san admires you, and even if I begged her not say anything, she wouldn't be able to hold it in." She paused, studied him and put on a sad look and started to look down at the road they were walking in, something she almost never did. She always used to look in his face. "I'm hindering you… can't you see?"

Naruto looked at her, uncertain of what to do. He felt a growing pain in his chest, choking him, making him feel weak and worthless. "Wh-what do you mean?" He was tired of being stupid, but asking was the only thing he could do, even though he knew it was taking quite a toll on both of them.

"I'm always in the way… I don't understand." She sagged, looking even smaller and weaker than she had been just before. "Why are you with such a kid as me? There's a lot in the higher ranks that like you… even you can't be oblivious to that." She didn't let him counter before she spoke again, with tears flowing down her small slender cheeks. "I'm not really someone you could brag about, am I…? Heh… I suppose not…" And she walked away from him, fingers clasping fingers, still shedding tears.

Naruto could only watch.

Authors notes

Okay, as for the "promise" not to have any "fights", this was an exception. Besides, it really didn't count as a fight, does it? And, err, expect more exceptions in the future. Count on it.

And goooooddaaaaaamn, my sense of romance is corny. You'll be seeing a lot of that in the future, too. That's a promise.