Hiii I know its been over a year but I finally found a better way to upload this story. I was having a bit of trouble and was quite busy with personal things going on in my life but now ill be updating daily (excluding Saturday and Sunday) sorry for the long wait but if you're still reading please enjoy!

The Long Way Home

Part 2

First Impressions

Chapter 2/2

Despite the snoring Sasuke managed a full night of sleep for the first time since waking up in the clearing and felt a lot better because of it. Of course, Naruto's normal exuberance was also hitting high gear after his rest last night too and he seemed strangely fixated on the codebook and the laws of the country in the light of a new day. He spent the entire morning reading out laws and going on about how unfair and stupid it was. Even when Sasuke escaped into the bathroom to bathe Naruto followed him with his nose in the book and an unbelieving look on his face. Sasuke had never seen the dobe take such an interest in any book before.

But he had just been relaxing in the tub when Naruto had wandered in and sat on the floor.

"Teme, did you read the one about making it illegal to open restaurants, pubs or clubs that seats more than eight people at a time?"

Sasuke glared at the intrusion. "Do you mind?"

Naruto looked up at him and blinked. "What?"

"Haven't you heard of privacy?"

"But this is terrible!" Naruto exclaimed gesturing with the codebook.

"And it will remain terrible whether you bug me while I'm in the bath or not!" Sasuke shot back.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "I've seen you naked, I don't know what the big deal is. It's just you."

For a moment Sasuke wasn't sure he had heard that right. Never in his whole life had someone been so dismissive of him.

"So, because it's 'just me' makes it okay for you to just walk in and annoy me whenever you wish?"

Sasuke asked sharply.

Naruto looked at him confused for a moment like somehow Sasuke had missed the point. "Well yeah. You get annoyed with me no matter when I talk to you."

"You have the gift of annoying me," Sasuke told him.

Naruto shrugged and looked down at the book again. "Well, at least you admit I'm good at something then. I only meant that...look it's not like I would walk in on anyone else like this."

"You think it would placate me to say that you think less of me than other people?"

"Not less, more like that it's...different. Fine, look I won't bother you in the tub anymore," Naruto relented getting to his feet.

Sasuke watched his dejected expression till he was almost out the door and then sighed in resignation. What did it really matter? "So why exactly don't they allow more people in restaurants, pubs or clubs?"

Naruto turned back at the invitation to stay, grinned and sat down again. "Doesn't say. But I guess it's like that rule you read last night about people not being allowed to cograte or whatever."

"Congregate," Sasuke corrected. "They must be afraid of people getting together. They've probably had rebellions in the past."

"Gee, I wonder why?" Naruto asked sarcastically. "Someone should really do something about this." Sasuke watched Naruto's serious eyes for a moment, gauging the weight behind such a statement before deciding he didn't like the way that had sounded at all.

"No, " Sasuke told him sternly.

"What?" Naruto asked innocently. He didn't quite manage to pull it off though.

"You think you can play hero to the entire world now because you did it in the five nations? You can't just come into a foreign country and decide to be the people's savior because their system doesn't make sense to you. Who says these people even want a savior?"

"C'mon Sasuke, have you read these laws?"

"Yes, some of them are stupid, some are bizarre, and some are just evil. But just because you're some great war hero doesn't mean you're allowed to fix the entire world as you see fit."

"I'm not saying I want to be a hero!" Naruto replied hotly. "But I think we can help."

"If the people want to save their country so badly, they can do it themselves or leave. Rebellions won't be stopped just because the rulebook says that have to be stopped, that's sort of the point of rebelling. And don't say 'we'. I'm not a hero and I'm not about to start being one."

"Good point," Naruto said sourly. "I can't imagine what hero-worship would do to your already swelled head. Your brain would probably explode."

Sasuke chose to ignore that. "If you won't be intelligent, be practical. Yesterday you were almost foiled by a tall wooden wall. I don't think you're really up to leading a civil war right now in the state you are in, do you?"

It was obvious that hadn't occurred to Naruto if his sullen expression was anything to go off. But he wasn't done just yet.

"Sasuke, they stake people to the walls for looking the wrong person in the eye or wearing the wrong color on a Sunday," Naruto reminded him quietly.

He thought as he got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around his waist that Naruto didn't realize who he was talking to sometimes. Well, it would probably only help to remind him right now.

"A year ago, I would have killed people for enjoying a peace I didn't think they deserved."

Naruto got to his feet and met his eyes for a moment before looking away again quickly.

"Yeah, and I tried to stop you too."

"Failed. I'm still alive," Sasuke reminded him.

"So am I and Konoha is still safe. You could have killed me or continued your raid after I went down but you didn't. I don't think these people share your lack of conviction."

Sasuke's brain sort of froze in an instant. It was one of those moments when you become so angry in a sudden moment with no emotional buffer in between normal and livid that your brain kind of freezes up and your body just goes and reacts without practical thought. That was probably why he almost dislocated his knuckles on Naruto's jaw half a second later.

Naruto caught himself on the basin behind him before it could impact with his head. As Naruto pulled himself back to his feet properly Sasuke could tell how pissed Naruto was, but Sasuke didn't really -care.

"How dare you question my determination, my honor!" Sasuke told him darkly.

Surprisingly though Naruto didn't make a move to hit him back as much as he looked like he really wanted to. Sasuke wondered if that is what he wanted. He would love an excuse to get into a fight right now he was that angry.

"It's your honor I thought I was defending," Naruto told him steadily. "You didn't actually go through with it, you aren't like these people. You can't think that a punishment like that is right otherwise you wouldn't have stopped yourself back then."

"Don't presume things. You don't know why I did and didn't do things."

"No shit. I'm still trying to work out why you hit me just now!"

"You insulted me you idiot. And I warned you not to bring up Konoha or I would hit you."

Naruto worked his jaw around for a moment while he recalled the warning. "Okay fine, I won't bring it up again even though I'm pretty sure you're the one that started it. But I wasn't insulting you and you can't think that these punishments are proper justice."

No, he didn't think that. But he wasn't in the most agreeable mood right now.

"It doesn't matter what I think, my point remains the same. If misguided self-righteousness makes you want to save these people when you are hardly in a position to face ten guardsmen let alone an entire country, be my guest. But I will not help you."

"But-"

"Sometimes people just need to save themselves otherwise it won't mean as much."

He didn't know why he'd said that. Well, he knew exactly why, but it wasn't something he felt like sharing. But the effect on Naruto was dramatic. He'd looked angry a moment before, but now he was looking at Sasuke thoughtfully and Sasuke knew right then that if Naruto pushed this, if he made any mention about Konoha and their fight and what had happened afterwards, or not happened as the case may be, Sasuke was going to hit him again. Hard.

But then Naruto smiled softly and nodded. "Okay, I understand." Then he left the room.

Sasuke hadn't been prepared for that. He was so sure Naruto was going to push him that he felt a little derailed when that didn't happen. Plus, there was probably nothing else he could have said in that moment that would have been quite so understanding, accepting and, well, perfect.

Annoying bastard.

Sasuke made himself take a deep calming breath before dressing and following Naruto into the other room. Thankfully Naruto had put down the codebook and was watching Sasuke expectantly.

"I'm starving," he announced. "Can we get some breakfast before looking for a map?"

Sasuke nodded. "Okay."

"I wonder if they have ramen," Naruto said hopefully.

"For breakfast?"

"Ramen is good any time of the day."

Sasuke made himself take another calming breath. "Fine. Let's have a look."

Apparently, ramen was too much to hope for so instead Naruto settled for some kind of meat sausage dripping in grease and Sasuke had omelet. When they were done, they searched around for a cartographer, which took a lot longer than Sasuke had expected. There was only one store that fit the bill and that seemed to double as a kind of messenger service. From the looks of this it didn't appear as though either side of the business did a lot of trade. Naruto seemed excited and went to talk to one of the shop assistants about sending a message back to 'village that will no longer be named' while Sasuke looked through the stock of maps.

Soon after he'd started Naruto wandered back over to him with a glum look.

"Apparently you can't send messages outside the country," Naruto told him before adding softly, "The girl got real weird about me asking actually."

This news didn't help ease Sasuke's worries any. As he kept searching through the stacks of maps, he had only so far found ones for this country which weren't at all helpful unless he knew which part of this country, they would need to travel to in order to get out of it and get a step closer to home.

"Can I help you boys find something?" a voice behind them asked.

Sasuke looked around at a man in his mid fifties smiling at the pair in a surprisingly genuine manner.

Actually, his whole manner seemed to indicate to Sasuke that he was more than an assistant, possibly the cartographer himself.

"Do you stock maps of the surrounding countries?"

But then the man's smile slipped just a little. "We don't get a lot of foreigners, especially not ones who don't bring their own maps."

The presumption may have been correct, but Sasuke had to wonder why he'd guessed so easily. It wasn't like they were speaking a different language or anything.

"We lost ours," Naruto explained, smiling.

"Is that a problem?" Sasuke asked a little less convivially.

"Not a problem, just an observation. We don't get a lot of people looking for maps of the surrounding countries."

"We were trying to find a map to the five nations, the Fire Country actually," Naruto said hopefully.

"Sorry boys, never heard of it."

That surprised them both. Who hadn't heard of the Fire Country or even the five great nations? Sure, that random traveler they'd met hadn't known, but this man was a map maker for fucks sake! They looked at each other for a moment before Sasuke turned his attention back to the man.

"We need a map as far reaching as possible beyond this country's borders."

"Well, we don't have any world maps or anything if that's what you mean. I'll have a dig around out back and see what I can find for you. You two must be doing some serious traveling."

"Apparently so," Sasuke responded unhappily.

In the end they had taken all the maps the man could offer them for the surrounding countries not wanting to pour over them in the shop because of the ever increasingly odd looks the shop owner was giving them. Luckily, they hadn't cost much because the owner thought they'd been un-sellable until now. No wonder his business had looked so decrepit, he could have made them pay a lot more for something they so obviously needed.

But Sasuke wasn't about to turn his nose up at some rare good luck and they went back to the inn to discuss their find. They both poured over the maps spread out all over the floor while they chewed on some strange purple fruit they'd picked up for lunch and tried to make sense of what they had bought.

Anything that showed the slightest hint of what was over the borders was vague for the most part like whoever had drawn the maps had done so from rumor or second hand information rather than their own experience. But even through the vagueness Sasuke found some hope.

"I found a country bordered by desert," Sasuke announced a shade carefully.

"So?"

"A really big desert," Sasuke elaborated.

Naruto came over and sat down next to him leaning over to get a good look at Sasuke's map so close that their shoulders were touching. Sasuke tried to ignore the feeling.

"What makes you think it's the Wind Country?" Naruto asked.

"See here," Sasuke said pointing to some barely legible script on the page. "It's an old form of writing but I think it reads loosely 'warriors of wind'."

"No mention of ninja?" Naruto asked craning further forward.

"No. I don't think they have ninja here. And it's possible that Wind Country ninja don't come this far for assignments."

Naruto frowned. "Why, how far is it?"

Sasuke placed the three maps he had used next to each other to trace out how far he'd searched. Each map, ending with the one with the desert on the border, looked less and less detailed the further away from this country they got.

"That can't be right," Naruto said worriedly when he worked it out.

"Seems right."

"Sasuke, that's like three countries away!"

"Technically four if you count this one, which by the way is called Adessa."

"How the fuck did we get so far away from home?!"

"You think I suddenly remembered and didn't let you know?" Sasuke asked him acidly.

"No! I just...no, of course not. I was just surprised. That looks so far."

"It's hard to tell, there's no factual scale to these maps as far as I can tell but I would estimate it is a least a few months travel by foot without chakra. Maybe more, though I doubt it's less."

"Holy shit!"

Yep, had been pretty much Sasuke's initial reaction too, but he'd been able to hide it better.

"There is some good news though," Sasuke continued. "I think there's a river that basically runs from just east of this town and all the way through till just near the desert border which is a mountain range before the desert itself. It meanders a bit, but it might be more reliable than following the roads on these maps. The Wind Country should be roughly north east of us but even that I couldn't really count on. These maps are so old and vague.

"Months," Naruto repeated sitting back in disbelief.

"Well, at least you'll have good company. As opposed to me."

Naruto was still in shock, so Sasuke gave him a few moments before Naruto heard him and got angry.

"Bite me teme. I'm not unhappy we're gonna be traveling for so long together, I just never thought we'd be so far away, that's all."

Sasuke could very well demand in light of this new information that they split up and travel separately, but it seemed stupid to do so. They would be heading in the same direction as each other anyway and it would begin to get rather silly when they kept bumping into each other. Besides, it didn't hurt to keep an ally close when he wasn't in peak form.

Ally? When had that happened?

Sasuke let himself fall backwards from his sitting position onto the floor amongst the maps. "I think I'm in shock too," he muttered morosely.

"But we're gonna stick together, right?" Naruto asked looking back at him. "I mean I get it, I piss you off and honestly, you piss me off a lot too. I've never been worried about having to do things on my own, but this is so huge. We only have a vague idea where the hell we're going, only a river to follow, Kurama's gone on vacation or something and I can't summon enough chakra to even make one single clone. I need...an ally...

There was that word again: Ally.

Even Sasuke who was used to being on his own, preferred it most of the time, wondered if he could go so long out of his element and with very little of his old power left to him with no one to back him up and watch his back. And realistically as far as travelling partners went in this sort of situation, Naruto wasn't a bad choice all things considered. He was strong, he wasn't always a total moron and even though it was begrudgingly admitted, Sasuke knew him well. People he'd teamed up with in the past didn't know, didn't understand and mostly didn't trust him. They followed him because they feared him, wanted to screw him, because he had something they wanted or knew he could help get it for them. Or all of the above.

Naruto didn't fear him, most definitely didn't want to screw him and didn't want anything from him. Well maybe that wasn't entirely true. Once upon a time Naruto had wanted them to be friends and for Sasuke to come back home. He was probably the only person ever to have wanted simple friendship and that alone from Sasuke. Simple yet so hard to give. Sasuke wasn't sure if Naruto had given up on that want yet or not, and he wasn't entirely sure whether he cared. But it meant that Naruto didn't want to use him either, which was a surprisingly endearing novelty in itself.

"Did I say anything about splitting up?" Sasuke asked like it was a stupid question to begin with.

"Why bother, we're both going the same way anyway, use your brain moron."

"Jerk."

"Idiot."

"Asshole."

"Are we done?"

"Admitting defeat?"

"No. But I'd rather one of us acted like an adult at least for five whole minutes."

Blue eyes and a big smile appeared, obscuring his view of the ceiling above him.

"You know I always called you a lot of names, but I never thought I'd call you 'boring'," Naruto told him.

"A lot can change, though not you apparently. I noticed you still haven't heard of 'personal space'." Naruto only grinned wider and leant down further till their faces were mere inches apart. Sasuke started to feel very cornered and had to fight the urge to push him away.

"Making you uncomfortable?"

"Being this close to you would make anyone uncomfortable," Sasuke shot back.

"Fine," Naruto relented sitting up straight again. "So, we leave town, find this river and follow it to the border?"

Sasuke sat up to in order to focus back on the map. "Not quite. This part of the map," Sasuke went on tapping the part of the map where the river met the border, "says that there is a waterfall there, so we'll have to cross the border near this road here. As far as I can tell it's the only road that goes across"

"We don't need roads," Naruto pointed out.

"No, but there is a town very near the border that this road runs through. I would like to get some information about the border crossing before we attempt it ourselves."

Naruto frowned at him. "You think it's not going to be as easy as just walking across into another country, do you?"

"No. The fact that everyone we've met seems surprised and even a little afraid that we're foreigners makes me wonder. People even need papers to get into this town, I can only imagine what it's like to actually cross a national border."

"I didn't think about that," Naruto admitted. "It feels weird that we even have to worry about stuff like this. I mean in the five nations we can go wherever we want. And if our chakra was working properly, we could cross anywhere we wanted even if it was guarded."

"Well, we don't have our chakra to use. But on that note, I don't think that whatever happened to us has shut off our chakra for good."

Naruto looked at him hopefully. "You think so? Why?"

"Because we aren't dead," Sasuke replied simply. "That's what happens when all your chakra is drained from you."

"Ah, right. Good point."

Of course, Naruto wouldn't have thought about that because generally speaking Naruto didn't have to watch his chakra reserves over much. But Sasuke did and he knew what happened if it drained away completely and the more, he'd thought about their situation, the more it made sense to him that they weren't completely drained but for whatever reason their bodies just weren't replenishing and holding their natural reserves like they should be. Their bodies' natural ability to hold and store chakra seemed to be damaged or something which would also explain why Naruto couldn't even hold onto natural energy either. It might even go so far as to explain why the Kyuubi was unreachable. The tailed demons were chakra beasts, they needed chakra to function so if the Kyuubi didn't have a replenishing chakra supply either it might well lie dormant until a new supply presented itself.

"That reminds me," Sasuke told Naruto. "Stop trying to draw in nature energy."

"What, why?"

"Because I don't want you to inadvertently wake the fox."

"I don't get it."

"Our bodies might not be able to build up our own chakra and keep more than the minimum amount for survival at the moment so we might assume that it's the same with not being able to keep natural energy as well. But you said before that you could draw it in but couldn't hold onto it. It is possible that it was being taken from you by your demon guest."

"You think Kurama is stealing it from me to build up his own strength? But nature energy doesn't work exactly the same as chakra.'

"It's just a theory," Sasuke admitted. "But it's enough reason to stop doing it just in case it turns out to be true."

"I still don't get it, why would that be such a bad thing? I can use the Kyuubi chakra as my own. If he uses it to get better, it might work in our favor."

"It might," Sasuke allowed before adding, "or it might go really wrong. I know you talk about him now like you're buddies or something, but how sure are you about that? If suddenly he had all the power, do you think he'd hand it to you without a fight? You told me before that you can use the Kyuubi chakra like your own and that you can control and mold it for your own use but that's when you have your own chakra to use as a control. Without that control your demon friend might decide that he'd rather go on a rampage than play nice and share."

Naruto looked for a long time that he wanted to defend the Kyuubi against Sasuke's assumptions but didn't seem to be able to actually voice it. He obviously really wanted to believe the fox would help but, in all honesty, couldn't promise the he would in fact play nice.

"I don't really know what he would do," Naruto admitted after a moment longer. "I think we're friends now, but I couldn't say for sure what he might do if he had all the power, and I was powerless like you said."

"Right, so you should probably try not to feed him any more power, just in case. If that's even what's happening. It is just a theory remember."

Naruto tried to smile at him. "I'm glad you're here Sasuke. I wouldn't have thought about this stuff on my own."

Sasuke watched his attempt at a smile but didn't attempt one of his own. There weren't a lot of people anymore that were very glad to see him or wished for his company. Well, nobody that really knew him anyway.

"If you had grown half a brain in the last few years dobe, you wouldn't still need me."

"Yeah well, maybe I am stupid, 'cause apparently I still do."

Sasuke didn't reply to that and just scowled at the maps as he busied himself packing them up.

Tomorrow they would leave this city and head east. They would take their first real steps on the long journey home.

And Sasuke really tried to feel good about that.

TBC in Part 3

See you tomorrow!