Holy fudge, this story is going way longer than I thought! And this is great and all except…my junior year of high school starts in just a few days! I'm going to try and post the rest of the story before the school year starts but I may not make it in time. The good news is that I've the rest of the story is all locked up in my little noggin' so that's good at least. But I've got 4 chapters posted including this one and there may be as many as 4 chapters left! ARG! Curse my productive Yaoi mind!

This chapter is basically something that I just whipped up 2 hours ago XP Because something really major happens in chapter 5 but I didn't want to follow up chapter 3 with it so I came up with this cute filler. BUT PLEASE DON'T SKIP THIS CHAPTER because what happens here is also vital to the storyline, so please read!

Chapter 5: 'Rekindled'

A week later, Konoha was once again blessed with another bright and sunny day. And on that very day Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura wandered the streets together; talking and laughing. The old trio was back, at least for the day.

"And that's when I punched his face, knocking 3 teeth out and breaking his jaw." Sakura grinned.

She had just finished yet another story of a bad relationship she had experienced. She smiled and looked over at her two former teammates whose expressions were close to nothing but extreme terror.

"Hey Sakura?"

"Yes Naruto?"

"Why is it that all of your relationships always end with you causing physical damage to either a man's face, back, neck, stomach, arm, shoulder, foot, hand, finger, toe, ear, head, thigh, or groin?"

Sakura's eyes grew dark as she stared at the road ahead,

"Because all men are evil beings from the deepest pits of hell…"

Naruto and Sasuke scooted away from her a bit,

"I-I see…"

Sasuke looked over at her again,

"You broke his jaw?" he asked her in disbelief.

"Sure did." She added, smiling again.

"Uh…right…"

The walked a little more and then Naruto leaned over towards Sasuke,

"This chick is still psyyyyyycho."

2.4 seconds later Naruto was lying in the road face first in a pile of mud from last night's rain.

"Ow…" he muttered.

Sasuke was standing next to Sakura,

"No offence man…but you seriously had that coming…"

"Oh shut up…"

"HEY SAKURA-CHAN!"

She and Sasuke turned around to see a 19 year old blond girl running towards them.

"Oh, Ino! Hi!"

Unlike Sakura, Ino had let her hair grow out again. She hadn't grown too much considering the years and she still had a love for purple clothing.

"Morning Sakura." She said as she came up to them.

"Good morning Ino."

She was taken by surprise,

"Oh! Um…good morning Sasuke-kun." She blushed slightly, "I haven't seen for awhile; how've you been?

He bent down and was now attempting to pull Naruto's head out of the mud pile,

"Oh, I've been doing ok." He answered as he continued to yank Naruto's head out. "Nothing new, since I last saw you. What about you?"

"Nothing new either, I'm still teaching the younger classes basic ninja skills. I hope to get enough credits doing that, so that I can advance onto the older children soon."

Sasuke answered; with each word he pulled at Naruto's head more,

"That's. Good. To. Hear." He finally yanked out his head, thus causing them to both fall down.

"Ow…" Naruto rubbed his neck, "You didn't have to pull that hard."

Sasuke smacked him in the head,

"You're welcome asshole."

Naruto got up,

"Oh yeah? Well if I'm an asshole then that makes you a motherfuc- oh…hi Ino."

"Uh…hey Naruto."

Sakura decided to change the subject,

"Um…we were just going to go get some breakfast, you wanna come?"

Ino smiled,

"Why not!"

All four of them went to breakfast but Ino ended up tagging along with them for the rest of the day. Around noon they ran into two people no one expected,

"Lee?…Tenten?" Naruto was astounded.

Tenten seemed just as surprised to see them too. Her hair was the same but her face and body had matured greatly. She looked very pretty. She smiled and ran towards them. When she reached them she gave Ino and Sakura both hugs,

"It's been so long! How are all of you!" she turned to Naruto and Sasuke, "Hi, Naruto! And- Oh!…Sasuke-kun…um…"

"Hello Tenten, it's been a really long time."

"Yes…it…it certainly has. We heard you came home but still…this is quite a shock." She seemed to be a bit afraid of him.

Sasuke noticed this and didn't make any advancement towards her; he attempted to be as gentle as possible.

"So, where have you been this whole time? It's been years since I've seen you."

She seemed to open up more with this question,

"Oh. Um…well me, Lee, and Gai-sensei were up in the mountain terrain for about half a year. We traveled around by the request of the Hokage to help out the many villages in need of medical attention. We had tons of vaccinations…" she laughed, "Lee offered to carry all of them. Hey speaking of which where is he?"

The three of them leaned over and weren't surprised to see Lee talking to Sakura.

Out of everyone Sasuke had seen, no one had changed as much as Lee had. It was like puberty hit him like a frying pan. At 19, his muscles were far more visible, he'd grown a lot taller, his hair was shorter and no longer resembling a bowl cut, and his eyes looked a bit more…normal. They weren't really golf ball shaped anymore. His green spandex was now replaced with a green tee-shirt and a pair of dark green cargo pants. He'd become quite handsome one would say. Sakura seemed to think so since she was talking to him with quite a bit of enthusiasm.

"Shit…" Sasuke muttered in shock as he continued to stare at Lee.

"Yeah," Tenten replied, "One day, Lee just sprouted. It was sort of amazing."

Lee had said hello to Ino and was now making his way over to Sasuke and Naruto.

"Naruto! It's been awhile!"

"Hey Fuzz!"

They both gave each other a quick hug. Then he turned his attention towards Sasuke.

"Wow…Sasuke…is that really you!"

"That's what I should be asking you. Shit in a hat…you look so different."

Lee laughed,

"Thanks." He held out his hand and Sasuke shook it.

"I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to come see you, but when we left, you were still in that solitary confinement thing…"

"Right…that ended about 3 months ago I'm happy to say."

"Really? I'm happy to hear it."

And what made Sasuke smile most was the fact that Lee really did sound happy.

The six of them were now wandering around together.

"Oh by the way," Sasuke began, "Where's Neji?"

Tenten broke off from her conversation with Ino to answer,

"Oh, he and Hinata are currently up at the Sand Village with their families. I think they're conducting some negotiations there or something."

"When are they coming home?" Sakura asked.

"It should be in a month or two." Lee answered, "I hear Gaara's being a bit stubborn."

Sasuke whipped his head around,

"Gaara!"

"Sure," said Naruto, "He still comes by here with his family from time to time…he hasn't been here for awhile though. I think the last time he came here was when you were under house arrest. I saw him that time…believe it or not he actually asked about you."

"Seriously? Sasuke was astounded, "I didn't know Gaara cared enough to wonder about someone else's well being."

Lee smiled,

"You'd be surprised. He's doing better since I last saw him…I mean sure, he's still all emotionless and grumpy, but at least he's not going around with that 'My purpose is to kill' thing he used to say all the time."

"True." Ino agreed.

It was a very pleasant afternoon they had together. Since there was such a big group of them they ended up running into a few more people. They all stopped by to hello to Kiba and Shino and by the later evening Shikamaru had joined the group.

The seven of them, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Ino, Tenten, Lee, and Shikamaru all sat on a grassy bank as they watched the sunset. After a bit of silence Shikamaru broke the ice with a very disturbing question,

"So Sasuke?"

"Yeah?"

"We're all in suspense, so tell us…Did you ever get your revenge on your brother?"

Everyone became still. They looked over at Sasuke who was sitting next to Naruto at the end. They couldn't deny it; they were all wondering if Sasuke ever achieved the goal that caused him to betray them all.

Sasuke laid back down in the grass,

"Yeah…I got what I wanted."

No one said anything after that; it was silent. Everything felt so awkward and Sasuke felt so dirty after giving an answer like that.

'That's right…" he thought, "I betrayed them all didn't I? Wasn't I the one who threw away their friendship and their trust like it was garbage? Just so I could achieve my selfish goal?"

He covered his face with his hands. But as he was lying there in the grass the Uchiha heard the words the child had spoken to him a week earlier.

"Well, whenever I get into that kind of trouble I always say 'I'm sorry.' Why don't you do that?"

Sasuke sighed slowly.

"Ok." He thought.

So he closed his eyes and sat up,

"You guys," he started.

Everyone looked over at him again.

"I'm…I'm…truly sorry…that I threw you all away for the sake of my pride and selfishness."

Naruto smiled at him.

After a moment, they all answered him,

"Aw, it's all cool man." Lee piped up.

"Yeah…I forgive you." Ino followed.

"Me too." answered Tenten.

And Shikamaru just grinned at him.

For the rest of the night no one said anything, but Naruto secretly squeezed Sasuke's hand when no one was looking.

END Chapter 4

OMG This turned out waaaaaaaay longer than I anticipated. I think this is actually the longest chapter yet! Wow, well thanks for reading this part till the end guys! I'm not too sure how I feel about this chapter so please review this one especially.

Chapter 6 will be up in a bit and chapter 7 is already written! So my next update will have twice as much! Check back soon!