Hey y'all!

Here is the new chapter!

No specific warning for this one. I think...

Anyways, thank you all so much for your continued support! And never hesitate to drop a review ;)


Chapter 14

Naruto was drinking a cup of green tea in his flat when someone knocked on the door. He didn't move from the kitchen as Shino let himself in: he'd been keyed in the protection seals from the start.

"-Naruto?

-In here, Shino. Want some tea?"

Shino appeared in the kitchen and accepted the offer for tea. Naruto prepared him a cup.

"-What's up?

-I finished early at the hives, I figured I could stop by before heading to lunch.

-Asuma coming?

-It appears so."

Naruto nodded. He was looking forward to seeing his old teacher again. He hadn't seen him since before his mission, weeks ago. All four members of Team 5 had agreed to meet for lunch today, now that they were all back in the village.

Naruto wasn't nervous about seeing Asuma. He hadn't known him much on the other path so he was pretty certain his presence wouldn't trigger any bad memory. Naruto had been lucky enough not to witness him in his Edo Tensei reincarnation. He knew how devastating it'd been for Ino, Chouji and Shikamaru. Once things got really bad with the horrible technique, he had valued the fact that his memories of the other wind user had remained untarnished. If anything, it'd be good to see him alive again after all these years.

Shino quietly sipped on his tea, his insects comfortably buzzing around the room. They always were in a happy mood after visiting the village's hives. The hives were tended by the Aburame clan. The bees fed on the flowers in the Yamanaka fields. The Nara and Akimichi clans used the honey to make medicine and vitamins. The bees also helped pollinate the few small family fields surrounding the village. These fields belonged to clan or civilian families and were only for their own sustenance – except in times of food scarcity, when they'd be used to grow food for the village.

The Yondaime Hokage had been the one who suggested having hives in and around the village. The creation of the hives and the network supporting it had boosted inter-clan relationships as well as bringing together civilians and shinobis. It had been a very successful policy.

"-How are the bees?

-Quite all right. One of the colonies suffered from the rain the day before yesterday. We moved them to another hive. They are settling in well. Itachi has been seeing to them."

Naruto choked on his tea. He coughed to clear out his throat.

"-Itachi?! Uchiha?

-I do not know of any other Itachi. He is quite skilled around bees. Extremely patient and caring."

Naruto looked completely puzzled. His brain could not compute the image of Itachi Uchiha tending to bees. Yet, there was something at the back of his mind about it. It was just out of his reach. He frowned.

The Uchiha. His mind was blank on the topic. Just as he was about to close his eyes and focus of the tickle at the back of his mind, he felt Shikamaru's chakra flare up outside the building. Shino felt it too and stood up, already putting the empty mugs in the sink and heading towards the door. Naruto shook his head and followed his friend.

Today was too good a day to start picking at the Uchiha shit pile.

Both men exited the flat and joined their friend in the street. Naruto stretched his arms up in the air as the trio started walking. Asuma soon joined them, easily catching up with them.

"-Yo!

-Sensei, long time no see!

-Good to be back. Heard you got a long mission too, while I was away?"

Naruto nodded. Asuma had been sent to the capital two weeks before he left for his own mission.

The team comfortably chatted while they walked towards their destination. Asuma's lighter clicked as he lit up a cigarette. He passed the lighter to Shikamaru. Shino was careful to stay on Naruto's other side, upwind.

Naruto was enjoying the familiarity of the moment. The sunny, if slightly windy day, helped his thoughts stay away from bloody flashbacks about his friends. Right there and then, the young man was simply enjoying the peace and the easy-going joy of meeting with his team after so long apart.

They soon arrived in front of a small, cosy looking eatery. They hesitated.

"-That the place?" asked Asuma.

Shikamaru shrugged. He'd been the one who suggested they tried the recently opened restaurant.

"-Chuunin on my last mission said it was good.

-It's vegetarian."

Asuma's tone conveyed his doubts. Shikamaru shrugged again and entered, motioning for the rest of the team to follow.

Naruto didn't miss the lightening-quick glance his friend had given him. Of course Shikamaru would have noticed the recent change in his diet.

When they were all seated at a comfortable booth, a young lady came to greet them and explain that their waitress would be there in a few minutes.

"-So," Asuma started again, prompting Naruto to resume their conversation from the street, "you were trying to not tell us about your mission."

The blonde sent him a half-hearted glare. He had been trying to avoid telling them about the mission. Not that he didn't want to tell them but he knew they would give him shit for getting hurt.

"-I don't suppose you would just let it go if I said it's classified?

-We would if it were," remarked Shikamaru in a nonchalant tone of voice.

Naruto glared at him a bit more. There was no getting out of this. His team would always respect confidentiality. But Shino and Shikamaru already knew he'd been hurt. He'd managed to avoid giving them an answer until now. He hadn't been ready to include them in what was happening. Now might be the time to open up to them, though. All four of them. This was his team. His friends. He wanted them to know some part of the story. He might as well start with the mission. It was innocent enough.

"-You might as well tell us. Why? Because we already know you got injured."

Trust Shino to state the obvious. Asuma lifted an eyebrow, clearly considering Shino's remark as the argument that would seal the deal.

"-I told you: I've been cleared.

-This does not answer the question.

-Shino's right. Spill.

-It was nothing Tsunade couldn't fix.

-But you needed to see Tsunade," Asuma confirmed. "Why? What happened for you to actually need medical attention?" His tone was serious.

"-Iwa happened," Naruto said as if it explained everything. And really, it did.

Naruto's teammates studied him, silently asking for more details. He sighed before replying to them.

"-They intercepted me on my way back. Tracked me for three days before they caught up with me in the cave system along the border.

-You thought you could lose an Iwa team in a cave system? Rock nins, in a rock terrain. You moron," sighed Shikamaru.

-No," Naruto glared at him, "I had to go through that cave system to retrieve a scroll a patrol had left for me there. I was hoping I had lost them before getting in the area. One of them managed to injure me pretty badly. I had to Hiraishin out but something happened and my chakra got fucked up pretty bad. I went to see Tsunade to make sure everything healed properly."

The few seconds of silence following his explanations was heavy with everything his teammates read between the lines. It had been a close call. Naruto's frustration was genuine: he was frustrated at himself for making such a mistake, regardless of the fact that he didn't have the experience of his other path available to him at the time.

"-Damn. Still after you, uh?," Asuma broke the silence.

"-You'd think they'd let it go after all this time…" Shino noted.

Naruto scoffed. Oonoki could hold a grudge like no other, that stubborn old coot. He was about to retort as much to his friend when he was interrupted by the arrival of their cheery waitress.

"-Gentlemen! Sorry for the wait! What can I get you?"

Naruto's guts twisted on themselves. All the air in his lungs left his body, and his ears began to ring, covering the noise of the eatery.

"-Sakura?!" he whizzed.

The young woman startled and blushed at being addressed so casually.

"-Namikaze-sama!" She recovered quickly, "What would you like today?"

Naruto looked and felt about to get sick. His teammates observed him, surprised and confused by the shock on his face. The waitress blushed deeper and started to fidget under Naruto's unreadable blue gaze. Seeing her discomfort, Asuma quickly ordered for the table. She wrote down their order and quickly dismissed herself without another word, unsettled by Naruto's behavior.

The three men studied their blond friend. For a brief moment, uncertainty flickered in his eyes, followed by a crushing sadness that they didn't understand.

"-You know her?" Shino asked.

"-I… I guess not."

The lump in Naruto's throat made his voice raspy. He lowered his gaze and completely ignored the confused looks his teammates sent him. They started talking again, awkwardly discussing something he just couldn't bring himself to focus on.

He could barely breathe. He could feel her presence like a radiating light in the blackest night, pulsating on his skin and through his chakra. It was taking all his focus not to stand up, grab the waitress and shake her.

Because this was most definitely Sakura. He'd spent most of his life with her by his side. He would recognize her in a heartbeat.

Same pink hair, same green eyes he could feel on the back of his neck in furtive glances, same soothing, discreet flowery perfume she used to wear on festival days when they were younger.

Sakura. His wonderfully strong teammate. The woman who had somehow held him together when he fell apart on a scorching hot battlefield, agony searing in his bones and tears streaming down his face, heart ripped to pieces with too many losses.

Sakura, who had held his hand and stirred him home when he was too lost to even remember what that meant.

Images flashed in his mind, a lifetime's worth of memories, both happy and sad. Memories of laughter and cries, of victories and heartache. Of love and hatred.

Sakura, who was now standing a few feet away from him, laughing with her colleague about whatever the other girl had told her. She was so painfully familiar. And yet so different. Her voice, her smile, her laughter. They were just slightly off.

This Sakura didn't have a Sannin's lifework shining on her forehead, claiming to the world that she mattered. Her voice didn't hold the steely strength she'd developed during his time away as a teenager. Her smile didn't tilt in that particular way that told him he was being silly but she loved him anyways. Her laughter held none of the notes that hid the pain and sadness despite which she could still illuminate his day. The hands putting their drinks down on the table were smooth and unblemished, the nails clean and manicured. The pink hair brushing her chin was long and shiny, held in a loose plait that fell over her shoulder, a subtle flowery perfume wafting from it. So long. So easy to grab.

She fidgeted as she moved away from their table. How long had it been since the last time Sakura had fidgeted?

Naruto focused back on his friends' conversation. His ears were still ringing, and he couldn't figure out what it was that was being discussed. He drank from his drink, willing the taste of the beverage to chase away Sakura's perfume.

Sakura, who was now awkwardly putting their plates down and who threw him a glance that was so admiring it made bile rise in his throat.

These eyes were wrong. There was awe and admiration shining in those green green eyes.

Naruto's skin crawled.

This was wrong. Sakura wasn't supposed to look at him that way. Never him.

'Namikaze-sama.'

There had been no familiarity in that voice, in that name. That name was never supposed to pass Sakura's lips. She'd never called him that. Naruto, Baka, Naruto-chan, Commander. Never 'Namikaze', never 'sama'.

Naruto became suddenly aware of his tight grip on his chopsticks. He looked up and was met with the worried stares of the three other men at the table. He could feel Shino's insects buzzing around him, some landing on his skin in an attempt to soothe him, others nervously flying around, trying to locate the source of his discomfort.

Shino, Shikamaru and Asuma were eating, casually enough that no one but Naruto would see their confusion. It wasn't that they were not used to Naruto knowing random people. As a very public figure, he was acquainted with a lot of people, including civilians, whom the other members of the team might not know. But they knew him enough for his unease to be obvious.

Naruto exhaled slowly and started eating. His friends relaxed slightly. The food tasted like ash in his mouth. He took a sip from his drink when he couldn't swallow the mouthful. He focused on the noises of the other customers eating and chatting, and buried his feelings under spoonfuls of vegetables that turned sour.

He'd barely eaten half on his food by the time the other three had finished their plate. Unwilling to force another mouthful down, he pushed his plate slightly away, signaling to the pink hair waitress that he too was done with his meal. She came to clear out their plates a few minutes later, inquiring about his unfinished portion.

"-Was everything all right with your meal, Namikaze-sama?"

Her tone was worried. He managed to pull his face into a public perfect smile that almost made his teeth bleed.

"-Sorry, I must have been less hungry than I thought."

She nodded and took the plates away. She came back a few minutes later to offer them dessert. They politely declined and Naruto was out of the restaurant before Asuma could ask for the bill. It was his turn to pay.

Naruto took to the roofs straight away and headed towards the river. Shino was just a few paces behind him, supportive but not overbearing, as always. They slowed down and walked the last few meters to the river bank in silence. Shino raised his hands and let his insects go to explore the area. They loved mingling with the river insects.

The buzzing of the kikkaichu helped Naruto pull himself together. He'd been caught completely off guards. He could not afford to react that badly to people. He sighed, now more frustrated with himself than at the situation.

He started a slow series of katas to burn off the nervous energy. Shino threw him a glance, then sat down and attracted a few river insects to him. Naruto let himself get pulled into the calming flow of the kata. He vaguely noticed that his body instinctually altered some movements. That was something he'd already noted during his light training with Shino and Shikamaru. His moves were a perfect blend of his taijutsu on this path and the other, simply one more style to include in his large repertoire.

It had surprised him at first. He had thought his taijutsu would be limited to his muscle memory and knowledge from this path and only his knowledge from the other path. But when he'd discussed it with Kurama, the fox had said that Ashura's powers as a Soul Sage had allowed him to keep his muscle memory from the other path as well. Naruto didn't fully understand the logic in it but he could feel in his soul that Kurama was right.

Ashura's imprint, for lack of a better word, was very discreet. He could feel it in his relationship with Kurama, for example. On his previous path, Naruto had become friends with his tenants. Now, he also felt a strong sense of kinship with him, an ease around him that he recognized as similar to what he felt towards Kakashi or Sayora on this path. Kurama had told him that Ashura had been close to all the Bijuus while growing up. Naruto could feel that love vibrating through him every time he met with the fox in his mind.

Being Ashura was also in his awareness of energies, of life, especially in Sage mode. Ashura was feeling the Shodaime's trees vibrating with power. It was feeling the shift in natural energies with the weather, it was a pulse of belonging when he met the white eyes of Hyuuga clan members.

Being Ashura was subtle yet omnipresent. Being Naruto was conscious. It was a flow of memories, feelings and knowledge, ebbing in and out of his conscious mind, sometimes right at the surface, sometimes just deep enough that he could only guess at their presence. Ashura's soul was the earth shifting to create mountains, it was the moon pulling at the water to create the tides. Invisible but all-encompassing.

Naruto felt a shift in the energy around him heralding Asuma's and Shikamaru's approach. He finished his kata just as they reached Shino, who stood up. Naruto took a deep breath and released it slowly in his last move then slowly walked towards them. From the inclination of the sun, almost a couple hours had passed since lunch. Had he been lost in his thoughts for so long?

"-So," Asuma started as he lit up a cigarette, "you know the waitress."

Naruto repressed a flinch. He'd expected them to ask. Although Asuma's tone hadn't been questioning.

"-I didn't," Naruto's voice was just loud enough to cover the noise of the nearby river, which he was looking at rather than his friends. "I don't."

"-You knew her name all right," Shikamaru noted. There was no heat in his tone.

"-I thought I knew her. I guess I must have mistaken her for someone else.

-Bull.

-You recognized her, did you not?" Shino asked.

Naruto's mouth morphed into a pained line.

"-Her name really is Sakura, in case you were wondering," Shikamaru added nonchalantly.

"-Her parents own the restaurant," Asuma indicated.

Naruto remained silent, still looking at the river.

"-We bumped into Umino-sensei on the way."

That startled Naruto.

"-Iruka Umino?

-His father, Ikkaku.

-Okay?" Naruto hesitated, not really seeing what that had to do with anything but glad to learn Iruka still had at least his father.

"-He's the director of the Academy," Shikamaru mentioned, studying Naruto carefully.

"-Sakura was never enrolled," Asuma explained. "Her parents removed her from the program before she could start. They had registered her for the prelim civilian exams, though. Her tests were not conclusive."

A few minutes went by in silence. Naruto contemplated how differently things could turn out. His father had prevented the Kyuubi attack by using his barrier. The Academy had been attacked instead. Tensions resulting from the attack had run high for years. Iruka's father had survived. Naruto's own father had survived. He'd carried on with his duties as Hokage and reorganized the shinobi education system in the village to include preliminary examinations for the civilians who wanted to enter the program. All unrelated things, but put together, they resulted in Sakura Haruno never joining the Academy.

Naruto's throat closed up.

"-She would have made an amazing kunoichi."

There was sadness and longing in Naruto's strangled voice.

"-Maybe," Shikamaru shrugged.

"-My kikkaichu reported her having low chakra levels, even for a civilian. It is unlikely she would have progressed very far."

Asuma said nothing, observing the blonde.

"-She would have been one of the strongest kunoichi to ever live," Naruto's words resonated with certainty, leaving no room for argument. "She would have been the most talented med nin alive. Better than Tsunade. She would have loved and defended her people. She would have cared for them when they are too far from home to remember what it feels like. She would have leveled mountains and carried the weight of hundreds, of thousands of lives on her shoulders."

Naruto voice rang for a few seconds.

"-She would have been my friend."

He added the last sentence in a soft whisper.

The three other members of Team 5 were too stunned to react straight away. There had been so much faith in the blonde's words. An unshakeable belief.

The silence turned uncomfortable. It was Shikamaru who recovered first.

"-That's a lot of faith in someone you say you don't know."

"-Maybe I did know her… In another life."

There was just too much melancholy in Naruto's tone for the three dark hair men to write his comment off as a joke. There was just too much sadness in his posture, in his eyes.

A bird shrieked above them in the sky.

"-That's my cue," Asuma said, saluting them.

The remaining trio watched the older man walk casually back towards the village to report to the mission office.

After a few more minutes in silence Naruto walked down to the river, and a couple steps onto its flowing surface. He looked down at his feet, remembering a time when it took all his focus not to sink in the cold water.

"-Do you guys think souls can know each other?"

The question left the men standing on the bank perplex. They were saved from answering when an ANBU appeared a few meters away.

Falcon walked up to Naruto, undisturbed by his teammates' presence. It wasn't unusual for ANBU members to approach the blonde on various occasions. Falcon, however, was not part of the Hokage's guard squad.

Shino and Shikamaru silently observed the masked shinobi hand a scroll to Naruto, who was still standing on the river.

"-The information you requested, Namikaze-san.

-Thank you, Falcon."

Naruto took the offered scroll. Falcon remained where he was.

"-Sir?"

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow in surprise at the address. Since when did anyone address Naruto as 'sir'?

"-Hm?"

The ANBU kept silent but turned his head towards Naruto's teammates. Naruto quickly glanced at his friends then back at Falcon.

"-You can speak in their presence, Falcon."

Falcon nodded. If he was surprised at Naruto's subtle authority, he didn't show it.

"-Dragon asked me to deliver a message to you.

-Did he now? I'm all ears. And do repeat that message word for word, Falcon, we both know where Dragon stands on niceties," Naruto winked at Falcon.

The ANBU cleared his throat but all three shinobis around him were pretty sure that had been a laugh.

"-Dragon said to come get the bloody information your damned self next time, and that he wouldn't waste his messengers' time on anyone's bullshit if they couldn't be bothered to do their own freaking research. Sir."

There was a very subtle hint of unease in Falcon's tone by the end of the message. Naruto chuckled good heartedly.

"-Thank you, Falcon. I'll keep that in mind. You can go."

Falcon simply disappeared.

Shikamaru pulled out a cigarette and lit it up after shifting so that the smoke would not drift towards Shino's insects.

"-Since when are you pals with the Commander?

-We're not," Naruto didn't elaborate.

The truth was that he'd never met the ANBU commander before. On this path at least. He wasn't sure who it was. Contrarily to Shikamaru, Naruto was not part of the elite force. He'd never showed any interest in joining, and his father had preferred it that way. Still, he knew enough to recognize Dragon's message as what it was: his official approval for Naruto to come and check out any ANBU information as he pleased. The Hokage must have informed the man of Naruto's change in clearance. That would facilitate Naruto's life tremendously.

Naruto looked down at the scroll in his hand and unsealed it. He opened it and read it in silence for a few minutes. When he was done, he rolled it up again and sealed it in one of the storage seals he had on his jacket.

"-Damn, there really isn't much," he sighed.

Shino hummed in question.

"-I requested some information on Kiri. I was hoping we had a little bit more on the Mizukage or Zabuza Momochi.

-Isn't he one of the Swordsmen?

-Yep. The Demon of the Mist.

-Why are you looking into that?"

Naruto ignored Shikamaru's question and summoned a small toad.

"-Boss! Long time no see.

-Kiko, hi. Thank you for coming. Could you go find Dad and put in a request for a recon – A, please? No time parameters."

The toad nodded and vanished in a puff of smoke.

"-Are you gonna tell us what this is all about?

-You haven't answered me.

-You're one to talk.

-Do you?" Naruto insisted.

"-Do we what?

-Believe souls can know? Do you believe souls can take different paths?

-Is this about that Sakura girl?"

Naruto remained silent. Recognizing it for him being serious, Shino and Shikamaru became thoughtful. Shino was the first to speak.

"-I do not possess enough information to form an opinion on the matter. However, if such a thing was a possibility, I would believe it would be impossible to comprehend which or even how many paths a soul can take.

-This is troublesome. But sure, let's say it is possible, for the sake of conversation. What then?

-Can you imagine what it'd be like to know of your soul's paths?"

Before either of them could react to Naruto's question, Kiko reappeared in the characteristic cloud of smoke. The summon handed a small scroll to Naruto.

"-All good to go, Boss. Boss says to be careful. He'll keep a team on standby for back up just in case."

Naruto nodded and thanked the toad before dismissing him. He quickly read through the mission scroll, then sealed it away just like the other.

"-You guys coming to Mist with me?"

Shikamaru groaned but didn't refuse. Shino called his insects back into his sleeves. Naruto grinned and the three men started walking back towards the village. They separated to go grab their gear. They regrouped and passed through the village gates twenty minutes later.