CHAPTER 7: OF MISSIONS GOING WRONG
I so did not sign up for this, he thought as he watched his stupid, blonde teammate roll around on his futon, a poor pillow stuck between his legs, snoring softly.
"Naruto," he said, irritated as he kicked Naruto on his legs again.
Naruto rolled over, again.
Sasuke sighed, resigned, and went out of the room to confirm what he suspected since the moment he woke up.
Yep, they ditched us, he thought after he checked all over, and around, Tazuna's house. Only that brat, Inari and his mother, Tsunami.
No sign of Kakashi-sensei, or Sakura, or Tazuna anywhere.
Sasuke was pissed. At Kakashi-sensei. It's one thing to threaten them to ditch them while he and Sakura goes off on the mission if they don't stop training (which Kakashi-sensei referred to as 'dick measuring contest'; hah, as if there's any contest between him and that dobe) and an entirely another thing to act upon that ridiculous threat.
For fuck's sake, they were training!
In the end, he knew better than to follow after them, especially without dobe, so, he went into the kitchen to keep the two members of that house some company. (Not because he needed any company, no.)
But Tsunami was actually nice to be around – made him think of his own mother with her mannerisms. They even looked kinda similar. It made him wonder how her son turned out to be such a bitch when his mother, so similar to Tsunami, raised sons like himself and Itachi.
(His teammates laughed when he told them the same thing, even Sakura, who never made fun of him; he couldn't for the life of him understand why.)
Over half an hour, he sat in the kitchen quietly while Inari played with paper shuriken – Naruto was so free to corrupt little kids into becoming his sidekicks, but ask him to train, oh no – and Tsunami prepared breakfast for him and dobe, wondering the whole time if he should offer to help her.
A light thud, followed by curses, interrupted his dilemma, and turned to see Naruto wobbling down the stairs on one leg, obviously having stubbed his other one on the door.
"Sasuke! Where's Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan!?" he was yelling before he was even halfway down.
Ah, sweet solitude, where art thou?
In his typical fashion, Sasuke ignored Naruto. But then the idiot had to get into his face and shout even louder, "Where's everyone, teme?"
Tsunami tried to get Naruto to stop using the degrading nickname for a few days when their team had arrived at the house ten days ago. It clearly didn't work.
"Obviously on bridge, doing the mission, dobe."
"But why? Why didn't they wake us up?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes, "Kakashi-sensei told us they would ditch us if we didn't stop training."
"Oh, you mean the water-walking training where I totally crushed you?" Naruto grinned smugly.
Sasuke scoffed, "In your dreams, dobe. I clearly won."
"You so did not, teme!"
"I'm sure Naruto-nii-chan won. He never loses," Inari the brat piped up from his place of the floor.
"Thank you, Inari. See, teme, even the kids know who is the better shinobi," Naruto smirked.
"Like you said, he's a kid, a civilian kid. Hardly the best judge for shinobi skills," Sasuke retorted.
"Oh, so you wanna –"
"Okay boys, food's ready," Tsunami interrupted their squabbling (again), putting down two plates of rice, topped with mushrooms and fish. "Good morning, Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun."
They replied their greetings, thanked for the food, and dug in.
As soon as Naruto finished (all four of them ate more than what was served in the household, but none of them ever asked for seconds here, except for the one time a couple days ago when Sasuke and Naruto foolishly competed for eating more food, and inevitably puked it all out), he slid around the table to beside Sasuke and leaned in, "Kakashi-sensei won't like it if we followed them, right?"
"We need rest, Naruto," Sasuke replied robotically, the same thing Kakashi-sensei had been telling them for the past week. Not that they listened.
"Gah, shut up, teme. Let's go to the bridge."
Sasuke turned to him and raised his eyebrow. Not that he didn't want to do it; he was actually waiting for Naruto to wake up so they could do it. But Kakashi-sensei won't be happy.
And when sensei isn't happy, his cute, little genins are the farthest from happy.
"Come on, teme, what's the worse can he do? Let's go, he'll be fine once he sees us all alive and kicking."
"Why don't I believe 'all alive and kicking' wasn't what he was going after when he told us to rest?"
"You can believe whatever you want, teme. But y'know what I believe? I believe you are afraid of Kakashi-sensei," Naruto narrowed his eyes, like he isn't scared shitless of the man himself.
And to be honest, Sasuke is a bit scared. Kakashi-sensei can come off really unhinged sometimes.
Especially after that fight he had with that rogue ninja, Zabuza, ten days ago. That was one of the most intense fights Sasuke had ever seen, and he had been to some serious spars between Itachi-nii-san and Shisui-nii-san.
Turned out, the old man Tazuna had lied about the mission ranking. He didn't have the money to pay for higher security, so he asked for C-rank security.
Suicidal idiot.
He came clean after two rogue ninjas attacked the team – to get to Tazuna, of course. Kakashi-sensei, like the unhinged prick he is, pretended to get killed right when the ninjas attacked. Sasuke, fortunately, handled one of them as Sakura rushed to protect Tazuna, but Naruto froze as soon as the second ninja got into arms distance of him, though his well-placed explosive seal exploded just in time, probably saving his life.
Kakashi-sensei wanted to turn around since the ranking of the mission increased way beyond the scope of his cute, little genin, but they managed to persuade him to follow through.
They almost regretted it the next day when a fucking A-level rogue ninja attacked them. Zabuza Momochi. Demon of the Mist. Deadly water-style ninja hitman. And on a lake, to boot.
Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura had to fight quite a hoard of water clones, but Kakashi-sensei managed to almost killed Zabuza by himself. Almost, because even though Zabuza was totally at his mercy in the end, he spared him. (Something about being the bigger person; that was clearly bullshit; Kakashi-sensei never did anything good just for the sake of doing something good.)
That was also when Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto finally saw what was behind his headband that he used to cover his left eye – a goddamned sharingan. Sasuke was shocked, curious and jealous all at once. And somewhat embarrassed because he should have known just from (one of) his nickname(s) – Kakashi of the Sharingan. In his defence, it was unfathomable for anyone without the name Uchiha to have a sharingan.
And oh, boy, did he know how to use that sharingan. Kakashi-sensei was almost – almost, because no one is, or will ever be, better that Itachi-nii-san – as good as any Uchiha Sasuke had ever seen with a sharingan.
When they finally reached Tazuna's house that evening, Kakashi-sensei was out for two days straight. It was the calm before the storm. As soon as he got up, he started teaching them tree-walking.
Only to realise that Naruto has already taught himself tree-walking years ago and Itachi-nii-san taught Sasuke tree-walking years ago. So, he moved onto water-walking.
By the time Naruto and Sasuke had gotten the hang of standing on water, Sakura had mastered both the exercises, and was off to the bridge to guard Tazuna. Kakashi-sensei worked Naruto and Sasuke like slaves for all of four days before they understood the exercise and then Kakashi-sensei had to make them stop before they trained themselves into a coma. They, obviously, didn't stop, hence Kakashi-sensei leaving them back as he said he would.
"You have a plan, dobe?" Sasuke asked.
"Duh, of course, teme," Naruto yelled, before getting up and making his way towards the stairs, "I have this new seal I have been designing for the past few weeks, y'know, and I'm telling you, once I set it off in front of Kakashi-sensei, he's gonna forget a–"
Naruto stilled on the top of the stairs and – Sasuke swears it happens every time Naruto gets alert, and it's fucking unnerving – his ears kind of perked.
Two seconds later Sasuke sensed it too. Chakra coming in from the woods. Five more seconds, and he calculated five to eight people, about four hundred metres away. He looked up to see Naruto gone and Inari and Tsunami oblivious like every fucking civilian ever.
Sasuke got up, mentally listing all that needs to be done – get his pouch and thigh holster, get Tsunami and Inari locked up somewhere safe, make a plan, make sure the seals they put around the house were as well as they should be and figure out some way to deal with the threat such that Inari the brat wouldn't get traumatised. (Seriously, civilians can be so damn sensitive.)
He knew Naruto would take care of the seal part and get him his pouch and holster, so that left –
He walked up to Tsunami, now washing the dishes, "Listen, don't panic, but there are some unknown people outside the house. Can you get yourself and Inari into some room or whatever while we take care of them?"
Tsunami, predictably, stiffened with fear and tried to look out.
"Tsunami," Sasuke hissed, "can you or can you not get yourself somewhere safe?"
Tsunami nodded quickly and cleaned off her hands on her apron, "Will you and Naruto-kun be alright?"
Sasuke didn't respond. Naruto came back to the top of the stairs and threw him his pouch and holster. Sasuke smiled appreciatively when he noticed a few of Naruto's special kunai among them. By the time he strapped his weapons, Naruto was beside him and Tsunami and Inari were nowhere to be seen.
"So, what's the plan?" Naruto asked, like he gave a damn about any plan.
"Did you check the seals already? Is the house safe?" Sasuke asked and Naruto nodded.
"Then I'll deal with the ones in the centre and you take care of others. See to it they don't get around you."
They opened the doors and faced the six rogue ninjas a hundred metres away. They stepped forward until they were out of the barrier Naruto had set up around the house and then stopped, waiting for the others to make the first move.
"Are you kidding me? This is the dangerous threat Gato was yapping about? I can crush their little heads with my fingers," the man on the centre, apparently the leader, laughed. And he wasn't wrong either. With over seven foot of all muscles and scars to prove his previous wins, he probably could've crushed them with his gigantic fingers.
But they weren't little civilian kids.
Sasuke would've loved to hear some more bullshit and monologue, hopefully one or more bits of useful information on Gato, while he waited for them to make the first move but –
"Oh, you wanna try that, bastard!?" Naruto yelled, and in a poof, there were more than twenty Narutos running over to the enemies with kunai in hands.
Sasuke sighed, unsurprised and unamused, and followed.
In moments, the Narutos were down to ten and Sasuke threw Naruto's special kunai (called surprise – don't ask, he didn't name it, Naruto did) at the leader, who caught it instead of dodging it. It was the worse choice. Sasuke smirked as a moment later the kunai exploded.
Naruto had created his special explosive kunai differently than the generic ones. Duh, he's Naruto 'opposite of generic' Uzumaki. Unlike the usual explosive kunai that shinobi use, with an explosive tag wrapped around the handle, these kunais were explosive seals – and more powerful than the generic ones, too. They would explode as whole, leaving nothing but smoke, sound and injuries. Sometimes small shrapnel too, when the seal was written on a regular kunai.
Sasuke took out wire from his pouch, tied it to a shuriken, and sent it hurling around the leader's bleeding arm. The leader looked up in shock, and Sasuke jumped to kick at his face which he deftly blocked by his good hand. He hissed as Sasuke tightened the wire around his hand, and Sasuke used the chance to tie his other hand too. He reached out with both his hands to hit Sasuke, but Sasuke jumped over him, tightening the wire even more while doing so, so his good arm started bleeding from the sharp wire too.
From behind him, Sasuke tied the wire around his head, jamming his hands in an awkward, painful position. He looked around to see two rogues ganging up on a single Naruto – clone or not, he couldn't tell – and he threw a special kunai over them, shouting as he did it, "Naruto! Duck!"
At once five Narutos ducked, and the one to whom the command was addressed to, poofed. From the sword slice from one of the two rogues, though. As the smoke cleared, Sasuke noticed they were both injured, though not enough to take them out of commission, regrettably.
They started toward him when a grunt distracted him. The leader, still on his knees, had somehow managed to maneouver his tied hands into a better position in the four seconds that passed. Sasuke jabbed a kunai – a regular one – into his shoulder joint for good measure.
Sensing the rogues he just injured, Sasuke ducked as a sword sliced through the air where his head was half a second ago, and sidestepped into the other rogue, kunai in one hand and shuriken in other. The rogue defended as Sasuke hit him again and again while the other with the sword tried to sneak from behind him.
A Naruto was there before Sasuke could think of something and both of them fought back-to-back for all of five seconds before Naruto dispelled. Sasuke kicked the rogue hard the moment he saw an opening and then turned around to the guy with the sword without checking the one he kicked. Those were the kind of moves that you end up regretting.
The sword was already uncomfortably close to his face – his eye, his precious, still-no-sharingan eye – and he panicked. His free hand which had lost the kunai moments ago came up to hold the sword from passing through his head – fuck, never doing that again, – and sharp pain travelled through his hand. Even still, he had the presence of mind not to lose his hold on the sword before he gets in a hit. His other hand, still holding the shuriken, threw the shuriken straight at the rogue's head and loosened the sword just as the guy pulled it to block the shuriken.
Mostly going on instincts, his hands joined to form a series of signs as fast as he could while he sucked in as much air as he could, imagining it concentrating into chakra in his lungs.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Air concentrated with fire elemental chakra left his mouth and spontaneously combusted into a fireball bigger than himself, engulfing the rogue who was barely a metre away from him. As the fire dissipated, a body dropping on the ground, with charred clothes and first- and second-degree burns all over the exposed flesh, he noticed a few Narutos still fighting, and another body on ground near Naruto.
He turned to go help him, but sensed someone behind him. Before he could turn, a searing pain soared in his side and he looked down to see a kunai stuck just below his lowest rib, all the way to the hilt. He looked over to see the bloody leader grinning as he pulled the kunai out, slowly, twisting it here and there for more fun.
Sasuke dropped to his knees as the kunai pulled out fully, his hand covering and pressing over the wound helplessly to slow the blood rushing out like a damn waterfall. His vision darkened and narrowed, and he distantly heard Naruto yelling his name. Something hard and heavy slammed into his head, and he blacked out.
…
He regained consciousness, after what felt like barely a second, to burning pain all over his body and air suffocating around him. Slowly he realised that most of his pain was concentrated in his midriff – around the stab wound, specifically.
He tried to open his eyes but it was hard; the air was still suffocating him, pressuring him from everywhere, making it an effort to even think of doing anything. With slitted vision, he saw that he was still on the ground where he was before, blood from his wound pooling beside him. Moving only his eyes, he saw that the leader and the rogue whom he kicked and didn't check after – knew I'd regret it – were still standing behind him, frozen and gaping.
He turned his head, slowly and painfully, to follow their vision and what he saw chilled him to the core – chakra, so thick that it was visible in the air, red and scorching like fire, coming out in waves from a point, forming a huge silhouette of something. He tried to get up, but his body wouldn't budge. His vision cleared more as seconds passed and he realised that it was resembling a fox. His brain counted the waves before he wanted it to and there – nine.
The tales from the demon attack thirteen years ago never felt more real.
He noticed his breathing was heavy, his heart was pounding against his ribs and he couldn't move his eyes from that fox. He was frozen in his spot yet desperate to run away at the same time – not that he could've even lifted his leg in this condition.
But then it got even worse.
The chakra in the air dissipated, barely enough to provide better visibility, but still enough to see the figure in the centre of the fox. Naruto.
Naruto. The same Naruto he had known since Academy. The same idiot who had worn into him so much over the years that he would even call him his friend. The same boy he had always noticed getting mistreated or ignored by the villagers. The same backstabber he had always, even back when they were in Academy, trusted to watch his back.
Turns out the villagers weren't as unfair as he had thought.
Turns out the dobe wasn't as genuine as he had thought.
He was standing there, hunched, breathing heavier than himself, surround by the fox's vile, suffocating chakra and looking every bit demonic as the tales made the nine-tailed fox to be.
"How dare you!" The growl was guttural, inhumane, not a bit like Naruto's voice and yet every bit of Naruto's voice.
"I'll kill you!" Naruto roared before he shot off on all fours, straight towards Sasuke. Sasuke would've tried to run, defend, hide, even curled into a foetal position had he been in any condition to move. As it was, he turned his head away and closed his eyes.
But the impact never came. He waited, and waited until he heard a grunt and opened his eyes to see Naruto send the seven-foot giant of a man hurling into a tree metres away. Only then did he also notice the destruction in the clearing, like a hurricane had crashed on them. Even the house wasn't spared – the front of it cracked here and there – and it was inside the protection of Naruto's barrier seal.
Naruto yelled and ran into the leader and hit him faster than Sasuke had ever seen him fight – and harder, too, if the way the leader stumbled around like a dummy suggested anything. Within minutes the leader was on the ground – unconscious or dead. And Naruto, like a bloodthirsty beast, moved on to every one of the three rogues still standing and dropped them like puppets with just a few hits. One of them put up a fight and only lasted six seconds.
And Sasuke saw that demon stand over the last body – dead? – as the chakra from the air dissipated, making it easier to breathe. Though now it was the visions that he had just seen and had engraved into his memory that made it difficult to breathe.
When the fox chakra was almost gone – almost, because truly, it would take months to dissipate completely; if nothing else, he now surely believed everything that was said about the demon attack in the village – Naruto turned and walked over to him.
Relief was evident in his face as he got closer. "Sasuke, you're alive," he breather, still panting lightly from his previous display.
All Sasuke could see was the demon fox.
Naruto came closer to him and he flinched, which Naruto didn't notice, "Sasuke… your eyes…"
Sasuke frowned, and when Naruto didn't continue, he had to ask, "What about my eyes?"
"I think you… unlocked your sharingan…?" Naruto trailed off, not sure what he was saying.
Sasuke frowned, again, not feeling anything unusual. He blinked repeatedly but nothing happened. He tried to get up and then hissed as his wound made a reappearance in his mind.
"Shit, you're hurt, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted and got up, extending a hand to help Sasuke.
Sasuke looked at the bloodied hand, his vision flashing to Naruto breaking off a rogue's sword with that same bare hand. Now there was nothing but blood, where there should have been a cut deep enough to need stitches.
He didn't take the hand, and a few seconds later Naruto looked up, "Who's there?"
Sasuke followed Naruto's vision, hating himself for not being able to sense anything.
Naruto's hand slipped into his holster to pull out a kunai when nothing happened. Just as he was about to take a step, a figure stepped out from the wood, quiet as a ninja.
Naruto froze, "You!? What are you doing here?"
Sasuke looked at the girl about their age, wearing a pink yukata and dark, waist-length hair loose, wondering how Naruto knew her when they had spent almost all of their time training together the past week.
"I was in the woods when I heard someone yell, so I came here to check." Her voice was soft and low. She had some kind of flower basket in her hands. She stepped towards them, so lightly you wouldn't know someone was there if you closed your eyes.
Apparently, Naruto realised it the same time as Sasuke did, tensing into a stance with a kunai in one hand, "Don't come closer. You're a ninja."
The girl stopped, but didn't look the least bit threatened, "I am."
"How do I know you don't work for Gato, too?"
"If I wanted to hurt you, I would've done that when you were sleeping in the woods," she said calmly.
Ahh, so that's how he knew. Three nights ago, Naruto spent the night near the lake, training. He and Sakura found him in the morning, squatting in the woods, thinking hard about something.
"And? Will you hurt us now?"
She looked at Sasuke, still on the ground, and then back at Naruto, "I am a medic-nin."
Naruto looked conflicted, chewing on the inside of his cheek, then he silently lowered his kunai and straightened, but didn't relax.
The girl came up to them and knelt beside Sasuke. Sasuke tried to get up but she stopped him, "Don't move. Let me stop the bleeding first. Can you lift your shirt?"
Sasuke did not trust her, but it wasn't like he could have done anything in his condition. So, he lifted his shirt till his wound was exposed, giving her side-eye the whole time.
She looked at the wound and said, "It's deep." Her hand hovered over the wound and glowed green with warm, soothing chakra.
"You might want to turn off that sharingan. It will save your strength," she murmured without moving her eyes.
Sasuke blinked, having no idea how to do that. He tried to control the chakra flow inside his body and lessened the chakra in his eyes. He immediately felt lighter in the head.
It was quiet for some time, until sounds came up again from the woods.
Seconds later, Kakashi-sensei emerged, supporting a heavily injured Zabuza on his side. Sakura and Tazuna followed.
Sasuke frowned, why is Zabuza with them?
Sakura gasped, "Sasuke-kun!" and came up to him, hands covering her mouth.
Kakashi-sensei looked around and lowered Zabuza to the ground. "Naruto. What happened?"
Naruto fidgeted before answering, acting unusually nervous, "Six rogue ninjas came here, on Gato's orders. We fought, and one of them stabbed Sasuke. I thought he… died."
Naruto thought I died? From a stab wound?
Kakashi-sensei looked at the girl beside Sasuke, now sitting back silently, the wound closed up without a scar, and asked, "And?"
"Ah, he's not a threat, Kakashi-sensei. I met him in the woods two days ago. He is a medic nin," Naruto looked at the… boy(?) and chuckled nervously, "Uh, did you tell me you name already?"
"No, I didn't," the boy answered in that same soft, girly voice. "It's Haku."
"Excellent," Kakashi-sensei clapped his hands once, "Haku. Do you mind checking up on my friend here? I'm sure there are a couple injuries there that may become fatal."
Haku nodded and looked over at Zabuza, "It's fine, I don't mind."
Kakashi-sensei turned to Naruto, "You, follow me."
They both left toward Tazuna's house and Sasuke tried to get up, again. Before he could, Haku's voice stopped him, "Turn on your side first and then get up. Try to move your torso as less as possible."
Against his better judgement, Sasuke did what he was told, and it definitely didn't hurt as much as before.
Sakura was beside him as soon as he was sitting and grabbing his hands. One month ago, he would've snatched them away, but he was slowly getting used to his touchy teammates. He was exhausted anyway.
Sakura was about to speak again, but Haku beat her to it, "I have stitched the skin but the wound is still there in the flesh. It was really deep, and it would take quite a bit of my chakra to heal it completely. I suggest you let it heal naturally now and do not exert any pressure there for at least one week. You will be back to normal in three weeks at max."
Haku got up and went over to Zabuza. Sasuke looked at the flower basket he left behind and saw it full of medical herbs.
"What happened, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura's high, afraid voice grated in his ears, and he remembered that he was socked on the head, too.
He slipped his hand out of hers and felt the bump on the back of his head, while Sakura continued her rambling, "We were attacked by Zabuza on the bridge. He covered the whole bridge with this thick mist that made it hard to look even a foot away. The next thing I know there are a number of Zabuza around me and Tazuna-san and I had to fight all of them by myself! They were water clones, but they were still very strong! I couldn't sense Kakashi-sensei but a while later I could hear him and the real Zabuza fighting. After that, the fog cleared and I saw Kakashi-sensei about to kill him, but then, Gato came out of nowhere with a lot of goons and said something about killing Zabuza and not paying him and Zabuza killed him instead and turned to our side. They were about to fight the goons, too, but then we heard something like an explosion from here and there was really thick, red chakra visible. It felt horrible, Sasuke-kun. We came back as soon as we saw it! Kakashi-sensei was really concerned and even Zabuza looked a bit scared. What happened here? And why are all these bodies here? Did you guys kill the men that Naruto was talking about?"
Sasuke wanted to tell her about the nine-tailed fox and Naruto but he didn't even know what it was. The only thing he could make of it was that Naruto was the demon fox. And he really didn't want to think about it; it brought back the whole vision of Naruto and the fox and him killing all the rogues with painful clarity. His sharingan must have transitioned at that time and now he would never forget it.
"Your voice is annoying, Sakura."
Instead of taking offense at the insult like any other person, Sakura gasped, "Oh my God, I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun. You must be in a lot of pain. Let me help you get inside."
Without waiting for, or even looking for, any response, Sakura got up, still holding his hand, and helped him stand up. He wanted to move away, but his body refused to listen.
Sakura helped him walk all the way to the house, careful not to touch his wounded side, and they found Kakashi and Tsunami sitting in the living room around the round table. Naruto sat by a wall, patting Inari's head as he cried into his lap.
If only Inari knew, Sasuke thought bitterly. Naruto in fox chakra flashing in his vision again.
Sakura led him to the table with others.
"Sasuke," Kakashi-sensei called, "when will you be good to go? Our mission is over now that Gato is dead."
"I am good to go now," Sasuke answered.
"He will be good to go in one week, sensei," Sakura said. Sasuke had a distinct feeling that she rolled her eyes at his response.
"Well then, we will leave in one week," Kakashi-sensei decided.
For quite some time, no one said anything, except Inari sobbing. Then the front door opened and Tazuna walked in, with a significantly-less-injured Zabuza following him, surprising everyone.
"Ah, Tsunami, can you please get our guest some water?" Tazuna sat down with others around the table.
Tsunami nodded and got up to bring water, admirably un-judgemental of their 'guest', who hesitated before sitting down. Zabuza was trying to come off unaffected but it was clear that he was very much grateful for the hospitality.
"Where's Haku?" Naruto asked from his position.
"He left. I invited him in but he refused saying he has places to be," Tazuna answered.
The tense atmosphere in the house didn't ease for hours after that. Zabuza left the next day, forming a weird bond with Tazuna's family and offering his help if they ever needed it.
Sasuke didn't speak to anyone the whole time. Not that it wasn't his normal behaviour, but he knew he was avoiding Naruto and Kakashi-sensei when he had never done that before.
To escape, he went out to the lake he and Naruto practiced water-walking in. he was supposed to take rest, but he couldn't bear the proximity inside the house. The feel of that dark, suffocating chakra was too much to forget.
He was taking it easy, walking slowly, breathing slowly, exerting less energy, not bending his torso. He just stood on the water, breathing in the fresher air and not thinking about his visions and sharingan.
He sensed Sakura come before he heard her. He didn't open his eyes even when she came to a stop in front of him.
"You're avoiding everyone," she stated instead of asking.
Sasuke opened his eyes but didn't say anything. She was getting better at reading him, and he didn't like it.
When he didn't say anything for a long time, she frowned, obviously upset at his behaviour, "You didn't tell me what happened yesterday, Naruto wouldn't tell me and I am not going to ask Kakashi-sensei. He doesn't even try to pretend that he doesn't bullshit with us."
Sasuke knew it was unfair to her. Naruto had a secret that he must have known, Kakashi-sensei obviously knew and now Sasuke saw it. Sakura was a part of the team and she had a right to know if there was something serious with her teammate.
He wanted to tell her, if only to have someone understand what he was feeling for the past two days. But he didn't know what or even how he was supposed to say it.
"What do you think about Naruto?"
Sakura made a face, like she didn't understand why he would bring him up, "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I asked. What do you think about Naruto?"
Sakura's eyes narrowed and she glanced sideways – something, he had come to know, she does when she is thinking about something. A few more seconds, and she will start chewing on her bottom lip.
"I don't know. I mean, I didn't really like him back in the Academy, what will all those pranks and trouble he was always making. And he was always coming between you and me, too, so… But now, after spending these two months with him, I kind of understand. Like, you know how gets treated by the villagers, right? It's not nice, and you were, like, one of the four kids who had ever talked to him in the Academy, so of course he was always hanging around you. And now watching all those seals he makes and shares with us, I am starting to think those pranks of his were pretty hilarious.
"I mean, don't get me wrong, I still don't like him, but he kind of grows on you. Next thing you know, he is the one thing in your world that is always happy and cheerful. I guess I like him, as a teammate. But why are you asking about him? Did he do something yesterday?"
Sasuke shook his head at her, mentally agreeing with what she said.
Naruto had a way of growing on you. You don't start liking him, but he becomes a constant presence that you can always count on to be there. And Sasuke was one of the very few kids who ever talked to him.
Honestly, he had liked Naruto as a person and he considered him an unwanted friend. But everything that he saw yesterday was like an eclipse over all the memories he had of the past years. Literally, thanks to his sharingan. If he could just get over it, he could start thinking with a clear head again. Or, if Kakashi-sensei would just explain what Naruto's deal is, he could get a better perspective on it.
But like Sakura said, Kakashi-sensei doesn't even try to pretendthat he isn't bullshitting them half the time.
That leaves him one person (except Naruto, of course, but still isn't ready to face him) who has the best odds of knowing the truth and explaining it to him.